Donor
by AudreytheAwkward
Summary: "Sam watched his breath cloud out of his mouth and nose. Little, short, puffs, like small rain clouds, were gone an instant after he breathed them. Just keep making more; that was the goal. Because if the clouds stopped, that meant his breath stopped. Which meant his heart stopped, which meant his life stopped." I just rewrote a lot of the chapters, so take a look!
1. Never Stop Bleeding

**I do not own Supernatural. Or the CW. Or Sam and Dean. Or J2. You know, all the good stuff.**

**SPOILERS FOR ALL SEASONS, ESPECIALLY 8 AND BITS OF 9.**

**I've rewritten the first 5-6 chapters to match up with some of the changes I made to the story line later on. Please leave a review at the sound of the tone, thanks.**

**Love, Audrey**

Sam sank further back into his chair in the ER waiting room, barely noticing the intensity of the seat's stiffness in his anxiety. His fingers beat out an intensely rapid rhythm that was quickly drowned out by similar percussion that filled the emergency waiting room.

Dean had to be okay. Breathe in. He would be okay. Breathe out.

The words became a meditation routine that quickly proved itself utterly useless, so Sam gave them up and studied the other worried faces that had been his company for the last hour or so. An anxious mother who had come in moments after he'd brought Dean in, pale and green with terror. Her daughter Emily had drunk nail polish. Susan, an older woman whose knitting needles had fallen silent forty five minutes ago as she stared off into space. Her husband had fallen asleep behind the wheel on his way home from work and was in surgery. A high school girlfriend named Della who kept muttering to herself that 'he didn't overdose, it's not possible' as she picked at her Nine Inch Nail tattoo, as if the ink would come off in pieces in her hand. She would occasionally lift her small, darkly painted eyes to gaze at Sam. Every time she did, he would just nod at her. Sometimes mouth that it would be okay. If only he believed his own silent promises.

A new man walked into the room, slowly sinking into the chair across from Sam's as if he was in a daze. Sam wondered what his story was.

Whatever disaster had forced this man to wait in agonized fear, Sam could almost guarantee that it wasn't the knowledge that his brother had just been ripped into by a couple of shape shifters. That was his and Dean's story uniquely. When he'd talked to the others in the room, they'd all politely returned his question.

What are you doing here?

My brother was attacked by someone.

That was a lie. Shifters weren't worthy of the title of "someones". They were things.

Sam winced as he shifted in his chair; his own injuries had been forgotten as he had worked in save-Dean mode, but now that he was simply sitting around, his body was reminding him that he had also been thrown into a tree, stabbed, and repeatedly punched and kicked by not one, but _two_ shape shifters.

He brushed his hand over right leg, biting back a moan. Della looked at him curiously, but he covered the bloody hole in his jeans and smiled at her.

The wound was pretty deep; he was fortunate that the blade had missed the artery. He would definitely need stitches. Maybe he should go get a nurse and ask them to do it while he waited.

He was starting stand when a doctor walked into the room, obviously searching for someone.

"Jeanie Martin?"

Emily's mother stood up quickly. "Is she?"  
"She's in recovery." the doctor smiled warmly. "She wants to see you."

Jeanie rushed out of the room, and the doctor turned back towards the rows of chairs.

"Sam Porter?"

Sam finished standing, leaning to the left to avoid putting too much weight on his injury.

"Mr. Porter. I'm Doctor Lewis." the doctor smiled and extended his hand. Sam quickly wiped the blood on his hand on his jeans before extending his own.

"How's my brother?"

"Still in surgery. A couple of his wounds were pretty deep, and they believe there's some bleeding in his liver. I came out here because one of the nurses informed me that she thought you were injured as well. I apologize that it wasn't addressed immediately; I would like to offer to personally tend to you at once."

The gears in Sam's brain shifted quickly. "Um, sure."

"Can you walk?" Lewis queried. He reached out a hand to steady Sam's elbow, the movement causing his tall blonde spikes to bob unceremoniously. As Sam shifted his weight, the doctor extended his other hand and pressed it firmly against Sam's back. "You're good, I've got you."

"I've got it." Sam replied quickly. Already, the doctor's level of concern and attention was making him a little uncomfortable. However, when he took a step forward, the leg gave out under him, and he barely avoided the embarrassment of hitting the floor butt-first by grabbing the wall for support. Susan gave a little gasp, clucking her tongue sympathetically. Della squeaked and stood up, her toothpick legs moving towards Sam, but she was blocked by Lewis' broad back.

"Here, sit down. We'll grab a wheelchair for you." Lewis crooned to Sam.

"That's really not..." Sam began.

Della was sitting down uncertainly, and Susan had gone back to her knitting...sort of.

"Forbes General Hospital places the well being of our patients in top priority." the other man recited.

"No, really. I'm fine..."

Lewis gently but firmly pushed Sam down into the chair. "Sir, I am attempting to avoid a hailstorm of lawsuits and possible insurance issues that you could rain on us by not letting me take care of you. Sit."

Sam shut up and sat.

Ten minutes later, he was sitting in a small room, biting his lip to avoid exclaiming in pain as Dr. Lewis dug the suture needle into his thigh again. The pain of the severed nerves and muscle was dimming the pain of the shoulder that the doctor had just relocated moments earlier.

"This is pretty deep." Lewis said. "You're going to have a pretty decent scar. Won't that be nice?"

Sam was silent. If he talked, his voice was going to crack like a junior high boy.

"I'll finish this up quickly; your brother will be out of surgery soon." Lewis continued. "It's just the two of you, then? You and your brother. You're hunters, right? That sounds like quite an exciting life."

Sam smiled a little. Dean always disagreed with the idea to fill out paperwork with such a big piece of truth, but Sam always argued that it was more moral. A truth that was actually a lie no one would ever see through. Of course, that wasn't how he'd convinced Dean that it was okay. He said it could be like an inside joke, when in reality it just seemed like one less like to tell. One less blot on their tarnished record.

Sam smiled. "Yes sir. Like our dad before us."

And there it was again.  
"Must be a lonely life. I mean, you have a brother, sure, but it must be hard to keep friends. Besides a few dead deer." he grinned at his own joke. "And I hear they aren't too talkative...the deer."

A lonely life. Hard to keep friends.

This man had no idea.

He realized Lewis was waiting for an answer, and frantically tried to recall what the question had been.

"Yeah, it's pretty lonely. We really only have each other."

"You must really love what you do, to sacrifice a social life like that."

Rude.

Lewis continued. "I was wondering though, is there any one else? Anyone at all? We were hoping for an additional emergency contact, since it seems likely that putting you as Dean's contact would be, I don't know...redundant."

Sam tried to process whether or not this claim was even logical. "Uh...no." he decided. "There's just us. Our parents both passed, and we don't really have any extended family. Uh...or friends." he decided to humor the doctor for a moment. "Unless you want a dead deer's contact info."

"No, that's alright." Lewis laughed.

Sam resisted the urge to shove the man away from him as the doctor finished bandaging his leg. He was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the level of flirtatious interrogation and the uncomfortably long periods of the doctor touching his leg over the bandage.

Sam tried to indicate his discomfort by clearing his throat and pulling away his leg, fully ready to do something more drastic if he needed to. Fortunately, the doctor seemed to get the drift and finished the bandage with a little more speed.

"Ok, I'm going to put you on a drip IV with some antibiotics for a little bit. You have no listed allergies of medication. Is that information correct?"

Sam nodded. Soon he was lying on his back, lazily watching a clear liquid fall in big drops, running down to the tube in his arm.

"Okay, while you're getting all disinfected there, I'm going to write a prescription for some ointment for your leg. And I'll grab a sling...you should keep that arm immobile for a while."

"Thanks."

At last, his creeper doctor was gone. Sam shuddered. He needed a decontamination shower. Maybe two.

The thoughts in his head whirled around him. Breathe in. Dean's okay. Breathe out. He's going to be okay.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Kidnapped. That was Sam's first thought when he woke up. He was on an uncomfortable bed, he hurt all over, and the room smelled oddly of antiseptic.

He'd fallen asleep. Or been drugged.

Drugged. Definitely.

Lewis.

He wasn't kidnapped.

He had fallen asleep after getting stitched up. And there was the iv pole to prove it. Here were the stitches.

Dean.

Sam moved to sit up, but a weight pressed against his chest, restraining him. He lifted his hands to push whatever it was away, but his hands wouldn't move either. He was bound to the table.

His first instinct must have been right. But how?

He shouted, straining to free himself, and then he saw her.

Bony. Red head. Small.

The girl jumped as he called to her, begging her for help.

"He's awake...have to tell him." She stared at Sam, her skin almost as pasty and thin as the white nurse's uniform she was wearing. Her nails raked in mouse-like frenzy over the back of her hand, decorating it in thin, nervous scratches that bled darkly.

"I'm so sorry." she whispered, reaching out and gingerly brushing her hand against his. Her breath was cold. Smelled like a funeral home. Flowers, death. Sickness.

She was a sick flower.

Sam didn't know as he stared into her eyes. His brain was a word fog. Thick.

Turning, the girl scampered out of the room, her knotted ginger locks flopping behind her.

Her bloody fingernails left funny lines on the back of his hand. Streaks.

Sam cried for her to come back, but there was no response. Panicked, he fought against his restraints again, his injured leg and shoulder protesting the movement.

Lewis.

The creeper doctor walked in. No. He strutted in. Like something from a parade. Proud. Majestic. Terrifying.

The mouse-flower-sick-thing trailed him, her head bowed, her eyes darting back and forth as she breathed heavily.

Lewis' blonde hair bobbed again as he spoke. "Good thing I knocked you out when I did. I got the feeling that you were figuring me out. You know...figured out that I'm a little off my rocker." He walked around Sam, tiptoeing his fingers over Sam's head, shoulders, hips.

"I've never like that analogy, you know. I think my ass is planted firmly in my rocker." he monologued." You know what I think the difference is?" he pulled a syringe out of a drawer and filled it with a liquid from a small bottle. "I'm in my rocker, but my rocker is no longer on the porch. It's off in the woods somewhere. Lovely out here in the woods, you know? Quiet, solitary, but full of strange wonders that are enough to make you lose your mind. A strange wonder...like you, Sam."

Sam tried to process what he was hearing. "I'm still in the hospital. You're going to get caught." he challenged.

"You're not in the hospital." Lewis paused and reconsidered. "Well, you are. But not the hospital you fell asleep in. This one's abandoned. It's another one of those strange wonders. Something no one bothered with when it was damaged in a storm. This is my...evil lair. Or something. Family business. I just perfected it."

"Who are you?" Sam demanded.

"I know you, Sam Winchester. The question you should be asking is _what_ am I?"

So, monster.

"Is my brother okay?"

Lewis looked at him funny. "Dean? I didn't touch him. He'll be panicked when he finds you're gone. Of course. But beyond that...do you think I'm a real doctor? I don't know if he's going to survive that surgery or not. I must say, my brothers did some impressive damage to both of you."

"You're a shape shifter." Sam growled.

"Duh." Lewis laughed.

"What do you want from me?" his captive demanded.

Leering, Lewis leaned in until Sam could feel his breath on his skin.

"Everything." the shape shifter hissed.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean woke up to blissful numbness and disturbing silence.

Actually, it wasn't so much silence as it was the noticeable absence of one Sasquatch-moose brother. Dean laid still for a few more moments, slowly letting the anesthesia wear off as he studied the odd water stain on the ceiling. After concluding that it was shaped like Texas -and when weren't these stains shaped like Texas?- he hit the nurse call button beside him and waited.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Porter?" the nurse asked cheerfully.

Dean wasn't too groggy to recognize intense hotness when he saw it. Gorgeous brown hair, perfect body, sexy, intense eyes.

"All the better for seeing you." he smiled.

She giggled. "Well, thanks. Let's check your vitals and make sure that your body agrees with your brain."

He grinned at her. "Hey..." he groped for a name.

She supplied it for him. "Chelsea."

"Chelsea, you wouldn't happen to know if my brother knows I'm awake?"

"I'll let him know as soon as I finish checking you out...I mean your vitals." she blushed.

Dean winked at her. "I wouldn't mind if you were checking me out." he watched her lazily as she took his blood pressure. "It's just that he's usually around when I wake up. He's got a pretty anxious form of bedside manner."

"That makes it sound like you're in the hospital a lot." Chelsea commented.

"We're accident prone." Dean covered.

"Apparently." Her face took on a somber expression. "The guy who did this to you...could you see his face? Did you know him?"

"No." Dean answered. "But he was a two-faced dirty scoundrel." he added emphatically.

She tossed her hair. "I don't understand how some people are. What makes a person do that?"

"They're just evil." Dean shrugged.

Shaking her head, Chelsea sank into the chair, chewing on her nails. "I don't believe that. People react and mold to their circumstances. No one's really evil."

Dean sighed. "I wish that was true. I've been around enough to know that some people are just jerks. A lot of people, actually. No amount of bunnies and charity events is gonna change that."

"What have you seen? What do you mean?"

Dean shook his head. "Dark stuff. My job runs me..._ran_ me...into a lot of nasty stuff." he corrected himself quickly

"Did you serve?"

He went for the lie. "Marines. Just like my dad."

"Well, thank you for your service."

He smiled and nodded at her, then winced.

"Chelsea, would it be too much to ask to see if I can get some more happy juice?"

Chelsea smiled. "I'll go ask the doctor if you can have more morphine, Dean."

"Thanks, sweetheart."

Dean leaned back as she left the room. Maybe he could get this one's phone number.

He couldn't wait to see Sam, poor kid must be worried sick when here he was, perfectly alright.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"What do you mean, he's not here?" Dean demanded.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Porter, but when I asked the receptionist, she said that one of our doctors gave him treatment for minor injuries, and then he signed himself out and left about two hours ago."

"No, no, something's wrong. Sam wouldn't just leave me."

"I'm sorry." Dean's doctor repeated. I don't know what to tell you. I'll check the security footage, but don't you think if he'd been forced to leave, or had been acting strangely, someone would have noticed?"

"I don't know which morons saw what, but I know my brother. He wouldn't leave me."

Chelsea approached from behind the doctor and gently touched Dean's arm. "Dean, is it possible he had a reason to leave? Did he have somewhere to be? Or maybe he's mad at you? Did you guys fight or something?"

"NO." Dean said vehemently.

"I'll ask the people in the waiting room and a couple of the nurses if they saw anything." she reassured. "We'll find him."

"Thank you."

"You better not be thinking about getting up and looking for him." the doctor warned.

"I'll stay put as long as you guys stinkin' do your job." he growled. "Find Sammy."

The burning pain in his side flared up, hating him for the exertion he'd just put on it. He told it to shut up through gritted teeth; he hadn't even gotten out of bed. He was exhausted, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to really rest until Sammy was there, safe.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam's eyes watered as the girl stuck the needle into his arm and emptied the contents into it.

"What's going on?" he whispered hoarsely.

She didn't answer.

Sam tried another tactic. "Who are you?"  
She licked her cracked lips. "Victim."

"Of what? What does he do to you?"

One of her tears hit his forehead.

"Shhh." she whispered back. "Shhh."

Her red hair blurred into her face as the sedative did its work.

Then he woke up.

He couldn't see. Red flooded his vision, accompanied by hot whit light that flashed like firecrackers behind his eyes.

Pain.

He didn't hear his own scream until it echoed off the walls and bounced back into his ears.

And he was alone. The girl was gone. And he was icy cold.

Sam moved cautiously, whimpering as he inched his arms around his torso to create some sort of warmth. He almost wished that he could be tied to that hospital cot again instead of tossed here. His body heat was leaking away into the yellowy urine-scented cement floor that made his eyes and mouth water at its metallic rottenness.

Something was very wrong. Wrong beyond the fact that he'd been kidnapped by a psychopath. He remembered getting stabbed in the leg.

He didn't remember getting a hole in his gut.

Trembling, he looked down, crying out as he saw the blood splattering his right side.

Was he bleeding out?

The wound was almost unbearably agonizing as he reached down to lift the stained gown that barely covered any of his oversized body.

Blood was lazily leaking from his side, in between the stitches that were too far apart. He wondered if the girl had tried to sew him up.

But what was the wound from?

He moaned, wiping the slick red substance on his fingers against a bit of the gown. He would kill for a big dose of morphine. He needed a blanket, though. Maybe more than morphine. Definitely more. How was he so cold?

He was trembling so badly that it was jogging the injury. He would never stop bleeding at this rate.


	2. Seven

CHAPTER TWO

Dean blinked groggily. Something had woken him up. He jolted into full awareness, his eyes opening wide.

He had been asleep. Sam was missing and he had been sleeping.

Groaning in frustration, Dean rubbed his face. He was failing his brother.

A gentle yet urgent knock called out to him, reminding him that it was what had woken him up in the first place.

"Yeah, come in."

Chelsea poked her head in. "Hey." she said, dragging out the word, making it syrupy and drippy with sympathy. "How ya doing?"

"Cut the crap, Chelsea." he snapped. "Any news on my brother?"

"No need to snap at me, okay? I don't know anything." she sat down next to him. "Where are you on the pain scale?"

"Is that really important?" he growled.

She raised her hands. Backing off. "Seriously? Just answer the question?" She sighed, pushing her hair behind her ear. "I'm not going to give you the whole 'take care of yourself so you can take care of him' speech. Quit being a baby and get your act together!"

Dean expected her to suddenly freeze and stutter an apology for her harsh words, but she simply spread her feet, crossed her arms. Demanded an answer from him with her eyes. "Well? 1-10, 10 being the worst..." she gestured at him to respond.

"I know the drill. Seven."

"Was that so hard? I'll gt you some morphine, and then you're getting some sedative. You are going to sleep, whether you like it or not."

He opened his mouth to protest, but she snapped her fingers at him. "Don't even think about it. You get out of that bed, your stitches rip out, you bleed to death. You can't go hunting for your brother. You got that?"

"I'm tough."

"Really?" she almost was laughing at him. "No, you're pathetic. You're impatient and you're impulsive and it's going to get you killed. Tough would be lying here, ready to be your best for your brother's sake."

She administered the meds without another word, and stomped out of the room, throwing an authoritative "now, sleep!" over her shoulder as she left.

SPNSPNSPNSPN

"Just put him under; I'll be ready in a moment. And make sure he's got a blanket or something. Looks like he bled out a lot from shivering. I can't lose this one as fast as I lost the last one...are you even listening?"

Sam barely registered the words coming from Lewis' mouth. Numb, he barely felt either the cold or the wound anymore. He had been fighting to stay awake, fighting to keep aware of what was going on around him. Now that Lewis was here, however, he wasn't sure that he wanted to be awake anymore; not if whatever had been done to him the first time was about to be done again. He was vaguely aware that thin, bony hands were making a weak attempt to lift him, so he made a weak attempt to help. He lost all remaining scraps of consciousness as his wound made full force impact with the edge of the cot.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam was hanging by his wrists from the ceiling of the dark room; blood trickling from his head. Completely unconscious, he was unresponsive to the nearing growls. Claw marks across his chest indicated that the approaching beast had already had some fun with the hunter. The claw stretched out, severing Sam's jugular. His last breath puffed out in a frozen cloud into the cold night.

Dean woke up with a shout.

It was just a dream. Just a dream. Not real.

Sam was okay.

"Hey, hey, calm down." Chelsea grabbed his shoulders and shoved him down against the bed. "You're going to rip your stitches; remember me yelling at you earlier?" he was still panting so she continued to press him down. "It was only a nightmare. It's alright."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Ahh, it hurts like a..."

"Here, I'll take a look at it." She pulled back the blanket and peeled away the bandage; Dean inhaled slowly, trying to keep himself from crying. He wasn't going to cry in front of this one, she was too adorable. And incredibly more so when she was angry. The thought of her maple colored-hair framing her sternly gorgeous face distracted him for a moment, until he felt pressure spike his wound and he gurgled in surprise.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry...just a little bleeding...hang in there." she rubbed his shoulder. "Tell me about Sam?"

"Ah..." Dean moaned. "I let him down."

"That's how you're going to start?"

"Let me finish, will you? I let something bad happen to him. He wanted to..do this really big job in my place...do it instead of me...and I let him. Then he got sick, and he almost died. It was my fault. I don't know; then I tried to fix it. I asked someone to help him, to take care of him. Someone I knew Sam wouldn't approve of. His name was Ezekiel. But it was my only choice...Sam was in a coma, and if Ezekiel didn't take care of him, he was going to die."

"Woah...you aren't exaggerating? A coma?"

"Yeah. It was really bad."

He jerked away as Chelsea applied more pressure to the wound.

"I know how this must sound." he admitted. "It doesn't end there, though. Zeke...Ezekiel...betrayed me...and Sam. When he was finished taking care of Sam, he wouldn't leave Sam alone. He...uh... stole Sam's identity. Now because of that Sam doesn't trust me, and I don't know if he ever will again. We just got his identity back, and he's pretty angry at me."

"Is that it?" Chelsea asked calmly.

"No...I got my friend...Steve...involved, and he got hurt in the process, too. I can't make this one right. I royally screwed up, and I don't know what to do. And now...I don't know if Sam's missing, or if he just got sick of me and walked out."

"You lied earlier...when you told me you two weren't fighting."

"I didn't trust you." he admitted sheepishly.

She crossed her arms. "Yeah? What changed that?"

Dean shrugged. "You yelled at me."

"Oh, that's how I win a man's trust? I'll make a note of that in the future." she pretended to write on an invisible notepad.

She shook her head and sat down next to him again. "Sounds like you majorly blew it. I mean, majorly."

He nodded.

"So what are you going to do?"  
"Get better and go after him, as fast as I can."

Chelsea nodded thoughtfully. "I can help you. Get better, I mean. Under one condition."

He raised his eyebrow. "Condition?"  
"If you find him...when you find him, don't let him down again. Don't let, what was his name..Steve. Don't let Steve down again." she leaned in. "Because, understand, that every time you're letting them down, you're letting yourself down, too. And that is going to keep harming you; it's going to keep picking away at your soul until there's nothing left."

She was really selling this speech, he realized. Her eyes were tearing up.

"Okay." he managed, licking his suddenly very dry lips.

She backed off, brushing at her damp eyes. "I hope you mean it."

And suddenly, he had never meant anything else that much.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"Let me explain what's happening to you, Sam."

Sam woke up slowly, realizing that the amount of stitches, bleeding, and agony in his abdomen had doubled.

He was out of screams, so tears substituted, puddling inches from the blood that was also flowing out of him.

He was going to be so dry, so empty.

The voice was coming from an intercom box directly over his head, covered in a thick layer of hardened dust. He could barely see the brand label, but he thought it might say Sony.

Did Sony make intercoms?

The voice wasn't Lewis; it was the girl. His heart twisted in his chest at the sound of her. Broken, hysterical, terrified...she was being made into a puppet. As if Lewis wasn't sick enough already.

"You...are being harvested. You...will save...me."

Hesitation.

"I am taking your organs. I am taking your blood. Right now, I have a lobe of your liver and one of your kidneys, but I will take and take, an when I am done, there may be a bone or two left, but you'll be long gone. You will be drained out."

More hesitation.  
"Why...why am I doing this? I have had a good life as a shifter. It is a powerful gift I have been given. But a human disease has pestered me, and I need to replace the parts of my body to save myself. My shifter organs are not strong enough. Yours are, so I will take them.

"I have been looking for you for months. A straggler, with no friends, with the right blood type. Someone whose absence would go unnoticed. Imagine the overjoyed sensation when my brothers revealed that they could bring you to me. Of course, the failure to completely kill your brother was incredibly disappointing, but I have guaranteed that he will be kept away until it's too late. And by too late..." the girl's voice hitched. "...I mean you'll be dead."

The intercom clicked off with a hiss of static.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean had been trying to breathe through the pain for ten minutes now. He'd begged the nurses, including Chelsea, to get him more morphine, but he'd been told he was at the maximum dose.

Sure didn't feel like a maximum dose of anything except incredible discomfort. Discomfort was too mild a word to express what he was going through.

He had pulled one of the pillows out from under his head; if it had been alive he would have choked the life out of it long ago. Now, it was crumpled in his hands as he continued to squeeze it. He wasn't making a sound. Not yet. He had a new neighbor on the other side of the curtain in his room. She'd been crying a little, with that newly shocked look on her face that told Dean she was new to hospitals and pain. He would keep the cries inside as long as he could. Maybe more for himself than for her. Maybe for Sam.

"Where are you, Sammy?" he asked the pillow.

How could Sam do this to him? Wait to ditch his brother until he was lying, helpless and full of stitches and drugs. Not that he didn't deserve it, but Sam tended to be more rational than that. Again, circumstances as they were...he couldn't blame Sam. Not really.

He hadn't thought that anything could go worse than it had. Nothing could go worse than Ezekiel refusing to leave Sam's body. For two months. Running Sam into the ground in a full on angelic possession, putting together a spell to make Sam his permanent vessel against the human's will.

Nothing could go worse than Dean calling Cas, begging for help, and Cas fighting for Sam despite the odds. Sam had been set free, but the fight had ended poorly. Sam with broken ribs and full knowledge of what had been done to him, Cas with internal bleeding leading to a coma that had lasted a whole week. The ex angel was still at the hospital in Iowa, probably would be for quite a while longer.

Nothing could have gone worse than Sam pretending like nothing had ever happened.

That was the part Dean couldn't figure out. Why had his brother waited until now to act vengefully?

The pain spiked again, and he pressed his face into the pillow. "I'm so sorry, Sam." he gasped.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

The blanket wrapped around Sam was incredibly smelly, and was more holes than cloth. He wondered if someone had died in it.

It was warm, though. He'd never been more thankful for something that at least bore the title of "blanket" in his life. Funny how circumstances would do that to you.

Maybe that was why he and Dean were so close...so thankful for each other. Because they had nothing else. No one else. Not that Dean was full of holes and smelly...okay, he could be smelly. And full of holes, too, now that Sam thought of it. Just not holes anyone could see. Craters in his soul. Sam caught a glimpse of them every once and a while.

He wondered which organ Lewis had taken from him this time. Concentrating to remain conscious, he ran his fingers over the two closing incisions decorating his abdomen, searching for the third and newest.

Ah. There it was.

Kidney failure was inevitable when you had no kidneys.

He knew how this was going to go.

The dizziness.

The feeling that there was no air left in the world that he could breathe.

The vomiting...

He could do without all of it.

Even worse, all the effects that kidney failure would have on his body would be almost the least of his issues if Lewis continued dipping into Sam like he was a bottomless cookie jar.

The fear of what was actually happening finally hit him, and he saw swirling stars.

Panting, he reached out, trying to grab something solid, something that he could hold on to.

There was nothing but the floor and the holes in the blanket.

A light beep indicated that the loudspeaker had been switched on again. Sam jumped, panicking even more.

"S...Sam?" the girl's voice.

Sam didn't understand why Lewis was using her; he'd seen his captors face, heard his voice. Lewis had nothing to hide. Maybe it was just to creep him out. The creeper doctor at work all over again.

"Sam...this is actually me...not...not Lewis. He's...I think he's asleep." a pause. "I saw you on the monitor. You're...scared...and cold..."

Sam didn't even try to fight the tears.

"I...didn't want you to, to be alone. I'm here. My name's Katie..."

Another pause.

"I...when, um...When I was little, I was...really sick...and it made me scared. Because I was so sick...and...my mom would sing to me. Maybe that will help..."

Shakily, the girl's voice began to rise and fall in song.

_When the rain is falling in your face_

_And the whole world is on your case_

_I could offer you a warm embrace_

_to make you feel my love_

Sam shuddered. What was this girl, Katie, risking by doing this for him? Her voice continued to tremble. What was her story, who was she?

She couldn't really sing, but it was definitely comforting. More than he thought it would be; he was not alone here. Not completely. He had Katie, for the rest of either his life or hers. By the looks of her, she wasn't going to live much longer. Poor kid.


	3. Fireworks

CHAPTER 3

One, two, three four, six-hundred and twelve.

One, two, three, four, six-hundred and thirteen.

One...

Sam squinted, trying to focus on the tiny rows of dots on the gown he was wearing. He had finally gotten to the part of the gown that was drenched in crimson, and he was unsure whether or not to just skip those rows, or try to make them out and count them through the stain. After a long internal debate, he skipped the stain. He wanted to pretend it wasn't there, anyway. Blinking, he inhaled deeply...he was fighting sleep as hard as he could; he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the nagging suspicion that if he fell asleep, he would wake up with another organ missing, or worse, not wake up at all.

His arm felt like it didn't even belong to him as he tried to pull the blanket closer to his shoulders and resumed counting, this time out loud.

"One, two, three, four..."

"Like it matters how many dots are on that rag." Lewis' voice said from behind him.

Sam twisted his head around until he could see the shifter, arms crossed and leaning against the wall, watching.

Sam ignored him, taking brief satisfaction in the moment as he continued. "six-hundred fifteen...One,"

"I believe you were on six-hundred fourteen, not fifteen." his captor interrupted.

"...two, three, four...six-hundred _sixteen_."

Lewis scoffed. "Alright. Well, let's see if you count any better with about half the amount of spinal fluid you've got now...Katie, get in here and put Mr. Winchester under for me. Be a dear?"

Katie slipped into the room, holding a needle in her trembling fingers. Refusing to fight and get the girl in any trouble, Sam forced himself to hold still as the needle slipped under his skin.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Fireworks. The kind that would snake in a thin, almost invisible line, high into the sky before exploding in a bright flower of colored light. Sammy running around, a sparkler in his hand, laughing as he wrote his name in the air over and over again.

It was an image that often crossed Dean's mind, and was the image that he usually saw in his mind when he thought of his brother.

Not the ridiculously tall blood junkie, or ex blood junkie.

Not the dead twenty-three year old in his arms as he knelt in the mud, blood seeping through his fingers as he pressed his hand to his brothers back.

Not even the more recent memories of an ailing man, fighting hell itself while sacrificing health and sanity.

Dean fought kept those painful images at bay on a regular basis, replacing them with images of the brother he wished still existed...a child familiar with the pain of the supernatural world, but still a little naive. Still able to enjoy life, still able to appreciate a few sparks on the end of a stick. A brother who had never been dead, never lost a fiance, never lost a brother, never met an angel or a demon.

Just a kid.

As Dean laid in the hospital bed, bound to a banged-up body, the image of a adolescent boy in his head was more and more frequently replaced with a freeze frame of recently-Zeke-now-Sam on his knees, holding Cas up with one arm while the other wrapped around his abused rib cage. His cheekbones had sunk in; Zeke had forgotten to feed him. He was gently calling Cas' name, his voice shaking horribly. And he wouldn't look at Dean. Wouldn't acknowledge his presence. It haunted Dean, taunted him in the middle of the night and gave him waking nightmares in broad daylight.

Then, Sam had started looking at him again. Even spoken to him, and gone on this unfortunate hunt for the shifters with him. But all that time, Sam had been gone gone. He was hidden within himself far deeper than Ezekiel could have ever shoved him. Dean didn't want to look at the place deep in his own soul that had already known. The place that was surprised that Sam hadn't walked out two weeks ago.

The older hunter moved his hand to his face, slowly wiping away the tears. No crying, he'd brought this on himself. He deserved everything.

His side was wet.

Distracted by the realization, he investigated and found a steady trickle leaking out of the sutures.

It had been four days. He shouldn't still be bleeding when he hadn't even moved. He hesitated for a moment before pressing the nurse call button.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam thought about what Jess had always said. It was dumb; one of the few things that she'd ever said that he'd felt weird about. She'd said it once when she'd left for a week; gone home to visit her family out of state.

_"When you miss me, just look at the moon. It might look different from where you are, and it might be a different size, but it's the same moon. No matter how far apart we are, we're always under the same moon."_

Well, Sam couldn't see the moon from this room. Couldn't see the sky. There were no windows, not even cracks in the walls. Lewis had oddly reasoned that Sam would count better without spinal fluid, maybe his next piece of logic would let see the moon with another organ out of the way.

He was losing track of how much of himself was getting donated to the shifter, but it didn't seem to matter anymore. He was going to die, regardless of what Lewis did to him next.

His life still clung on, pushing the limits of human anatomical science, as usual. It was more of a curse than a blessing that he was still consciously living in this amount of torment.

At least he was under the same stupid moon as...well, he was alone.

Dean was under the same moon somehow, he supposed, maybe still tied down to a hospital bed. Maybe flirting with a cute nurse. Probably thinking that Sam had just ditched him.

How did a shifter have such perfect timing? Sam wouldn't even be viewed as missing. He would just be logic-ed away as gone, abandoning his brother as a display of his hurt. He would be seen as angry and upset.

And he was. Angry, and upset. and a lot of other words; but here, at the end of his life, he was alone, terrified, and in need of rescue. That combination, along with the hours of silence he possessed, had brought him to several altercations in his opinion of Dean's actions.

He'd put himself in his brother's shoes. It was a place he didn't like to venture, but one he often had to go to to understand. And he did understand. Despite everything, it was painfully clear-as-day that Dean had done not only the very best he could in the situation, but also -considering the amount of information he'd had at the time- the right thing. He'd saved his brother in the only way he knew how, and Sam knew he could never ask anything else of Dean.

It was odd to Sam how starkly logical he was being with himself. The negative emotions against Dean were pushed away by Sam's reasoning, and suddenly, the idea of having his brother beneath the same lunar cycle was the most comforting thing in the universe.

It had gotten him through Katie sewing him up for a fourth time, hadn't it?

He had decided that he would take her with him when Dean came to the rescue. Not that Dean was coming for him in reality, but hypothetically. They'd take her for some new clothes. Something not white. Something warm. Something that would be thick enough to hide her bones. Then, they feed her about a dozen cheeseburgers so she looked at least a little less like a skeleton. Get some vitamin C in her. Take her away to a place where no shifter could ever get to her again. She could be safe and happy and slowly work her way to old age and obesity. Or at least a good extra fifteen pounds around the waist.

He'd developed an odd relationship with the broken girl; she would drug him, tie him down, probably help open him up and take away his organs, and then sew him back up. He did his part by holding her hair when she threw up on the floor. She still hadn't adjusted to the sight of his blood and exposed flesh.

She would sing to him at night. Three nights, now. Same song. Different verse.

And every night, at the very end, she'd apologize over the intercom and go radio silent. He'd told her not to apologize, but she would just cry and throw up some more. He'd hold back her hair and pretend that he didn't notice that the red locks were falling out.

If Sam could have anything to do with it, he would see that Lewis went to a special level of hell.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"Yeah, Chelsea went home for the day." the male nurse confirmed, grinning a little. "I don't blame you for wanting her instead." he sighed. "I asked her out once...got turned down so fast it made my head spin." the man sighed and lifted Dean's bandaging.

"Well?" Dean questioned, jerking an eyebrow at the wound.

"Uh...that shouldn't be bleeding so heavily. Have you been moving around, or did you wake up suddenly and tear your stitches?"  
"No. Haven't budged." Dean replied. "What's going on?"  
"Not sure. It could be a number of things. For example, are you on Coumadin or Plavix?"

"Which are what exactly?"

"Blood thinners."

"Nope."

"Have you been getting headaches in the past few hours?" the nurse asked, ticking off questions on his fingers.

"Nope."

"And one more question for you. When was your last dose of morphine administered?"  
"Shouldn't you guys have records of that?"

"We do, but we just want to ensure that you haven't received any medication that wasn't accounted for."  
"Chelsea came in here about an hour ago and gave me some more morphine."

"Okay. You should be fine, but I'm just going to have a doctor come check on you to make sure we're not missing anything."  
"Thanks."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam stared dismally at the pool of red below him. He didn't know where this one had come from, if he'd thrown it up or if it had trickled from one his multiple wounds. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, but that didn't mean anything anymore. His vision blurred, and he closed his eyes, allowing himself a moment of rest.

The loudspeaker clicked on; something he could handle, and had even come to anticipate hopefully.

"This is Lewis..." Katie's voice was on the verge of hysteria. "...I want you to know it's not Katie. I know she's...she's been singing for you, and I want you to know that I think...that's beautiful. Any...anything to keep your heart pumping. Also, I love music. If only you knew that the song is the reason you're here." a high pitched sob. "Let's...let's do a count of your donations so far, shall we? I have several things that belong to you here. One quart blood, 40ml spinal fluid, one left lobe of liver, two kidneys, a portion of small intestine, one spleen, one colon, one half of a lung, and one appendix...which honestly isn't going to do me any good. You really should have had that removed as a child."

Sam decided he was just going to focus on breathing.

"I'm going to have Katie bring you a multiple choice worksheet to help you determine which organ you want to lose next. She'll be right down."

Sam could hear himself wheezing; if Lewis wanted to keep him alive longer, he should put him on oxygen. A lung and a half wasn't really cutting it; not with the size of his body.

He was starting to think he was going to pass out when the door creaked open. He heard her gasp, and he reached out, blinded by exhaustion and a lack of air and a million other things.

"Katie...air..." he shaped the words, but didn't hear more than a whimpering croak.

Her feet pattered away, and he grabbed two fistfuls of the blanket as if it was consciousness itself.

"Here, here. I've got it." He felt the plastic slip over his face, and relief flooded into his system. He sucked it in for a few seconds, his eyelashes gently brushing against his skin as his eyelids fluttered uncertainly.

"Breathe, Sam. Come on. Please, breathe."

He felt something new, something she had not offered before. He felt a chill as her cold fingers slipped between the blanket and his hand. He gripped it, gently aware that too tight a grip could crush her hand. Her other hand slipped over his, and she rubbed it gently.

"You're freezing." she whispered. "I'm going to find you another blanket."

She let go of his hand, but he reached out and caught it again.

"What, Sam?" she sounded exasperated.

"Why...what did he mean." Sam paused for another breath. "About the song. That it's the reason I'm here."  
"He's...don't. Please. I'm going to get another blanket."

"Please...stay." he managed.

She was silent for a moment, her head resting on his shoulder, her fingers laced in his.

"No." she whispered in his ear.

She got up and left.

"Wait!" he breathed.

The door slammed with a resounding boom, and Katie was gone.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"So, doc, that male nurse you've got was fairly incompetent, can _you_ tell me why I'm bleeding like a stuck pig?" Dean asked. He was in pain and feeling woozy. It wasn't a combination that usually put him in a cheerful mood.

The doctor was studying Dean's arm vigilantly.

"My arm's not bleeding, my liver is." Dean said irritably.

"Did you bump your arm against anything, or was it hit?"  
"My left arm? No."

"Look."

Dean stared at the huge, discolored bruise covering his forearm. Speechless, he looked up at the Doctor for answers.

"We're going to test your system for blood thinners and get your white blood cell count up. I need to know if you're willing to press charges." the doctor hit a button on his intercom. "I need a transfusion for Dean Porter. A positive."

"Wait, you're losing me. I'm bleeding out, and because of criminal activity? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"In short, yes."

"Hang on. Run that by me again?"

"Until I run the test, I can't be certain, but your symptoms suggest that you've been injected with a high concentration of blood thinners. Depending on the circumstances, this could be viewed as an attempt on your life."

Dean grimaced.

"You have a headache?"  
"Yeah, actually."

"I can't take any chances." the doctor muttered. He looked at Dean in concern as he hit the intercom again. "I need an emergency team to room 314."


	4. Not Your Fault

CHAPTER 4

The blanket tasted like it hadn't been washed in ten years. Gritty and sour, it would probably have killed him from some disease if the operations weren't already shoving him towards death's door. He could taste blood on the blanket, too, but it was probably his.

Sam bit down on the blanket, listening numbly to his screams that were muffled and blocked by the cloth and bouncing back into his own ears. How could his body be on fire when he was so cold? It had to be close to the end. His end.

He had two blanket wrapped snugly around him. Katie had sneaked another one to him somehow. It was useless, though, against the frigid death throes of his system. He might as well have been lying in a snowbank.

He tried to think of warm things, but his brain was joining his body in shutting down, and the only thing he could think of was coffee. The way Dean used to make it; so strong and thick that it could keep anyone awake for days.

Dean.

He would be crying if there was enough liquid left in him to do so. It wasn't even logical to hope that his brother could save him now. Not again, after the innumerable times he'd already been torn from inevitable death or even brought back to life by his older brother. He didn't need to be saved. He just needed his brother. His rock, the one who had been there for him and gotten him through everything.

The door creaked open, and hope sprang up in him.

Katie.

He sobbed her name, and she came to him, wrapping her arms around him.

In a moment, he realized that she wasn't comforting him. She was lifting him up. Literally pulling him from the ground.

"Can you walk?" she asked urgently.

"What?" he blinked, trying to concentrate more on what was going on.

"Try. I'll help you. Logan, help me with him."

Sam knew he couldn't walk. There was no way. He obliged to her plea, though, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. That was a start. A new set of shoulders worked its way under his other arm.

"Come on, come on. Hurry." a young man's voice said.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean kept staring at the ceiling as the male nurse, whose name, he had discovered, was Jace, continued to ramble.

"I mean, I can't believe that she would do that. She was so...hot! And not just hot, you know? Nice, too. Really nice. I mean, even though she wouldn't go out with me, she jut seemed like a decent human being, you know? She brought me donuts sometimes, stuff like that. But dude, she tried to kill you! That's so weird."

"Yeah. Weird. Shut up already!" Dean bit out.

"Oh, man. I'm sorry. This must be really scary for you. I'm sorry man."

"Okay, just leave, will you?" Dean groaned in exasperation.

With a full quart of blood back in him, and his blood regaining its normal consistency, he was beginning to allow himself to process what was happening, and he didn't like what he was realizing.

Chelsea had tried to kill him, which could only mean one thing. Actually, two things; one being that his happiness with the incredibly hot girl was completely over, no second chances or second thoughts. Secondly, albeit with no conclusive evidence, Chelsea's deception most likely meant Sam was in danger. He couldn't identify the logical steps he'd taken to reach this conclusion, but he knew it in his gut. And he'd learned over the years to trust his gut over his brain.

He had to get out of the hospital and get to his brother.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"Sam? Can you hear me?" Katie leaned forward and tenderly wiped his forehead.

"Check his blood pressure again, Katie." Logan said.

She reached for the sphygmomanometer. "Logan, you should get out of here."

"He's not out of the woods yet. I'll stay. Plus, this is my place. You can't kick me out."

She nodded gratefully at him, biting her lip to try to control her panic. "We should take him to the hospital."

"You know why we can't. If Lewis catches wind of where he is...where we are..."

Katie dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand. "I can't see him die. I won't be able to live with myself."  
Logan was silent for a moment, hanging another bag of blood on the iv pole. Katie could see that he was choosing his words carefully.

"Katie, you can't blame yourself. It's not your fault..."

"Not my fault? I'm the reason he's missing half his organs! They're inside of _me_ and you're trying to tell me it's not my fault?"

Logan was silent.

"My father stole those organs from Sam and put them in me. So I could live. And if Sam dies...then I have to live with knowing that I'm alive because my father killed a man. Slowly, painfully, inhumanely, without telling him why. That's on me. I might as well have killed him myself."

Katie clenched her hands against her stomach. Dizzily, she focused on her lap, too numbingly terrified and guilty to produce tears. All that came out was a breathless scream from somewhere in between the pit of her stomach and her soul.

Logan pulled her to him, and she buried her face in the smell of his jacket. He was her only real family; she had disowned Lewis as her father in her mind long ago. First, it had been because he'd killed her human mother. He had been outraged when he discovered that Katie's illness was stemming from having the two species in her genes attack each other, killing her organs.

She completely disowned the shifter when he'd taken his first victim in the name in keeping her healthy. A life of a man named Chris.

She was losing track of how many organs had come in and out of her body in the last three years; organs that were stolen from others so that her father could save her. No matter how many people had suffered for her, though, her body had rejected them all.

Until Sam.

"It is not your fault, Katie. It's not your fault." Logan repeated over and over. She could feel his heart thumping angrily. He needed comfort, too. She wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning into the familiarity of her half brother.

"We've got to save him." she gasped.

"We've done everything we can, Katie. You need to get some rest, okay?"

She could feel it; the weariness. The coldness. It had been a diminishing feeling recently, thanks to Sam, but she had been pushing herself too much. For him. She owed him.

"Katie, if you promise to get some sleep, I'll watch out for him, alright? And I'll wake you up the instant anything changes. Go get in my bed."

She nodded, taking one last look at Sam. It was a little like looking in a time-traveling mirror; the gauntly obvious cheekbones under the yellowed skin that was bluish around the fingertips, lips, and eyelids. The thinning hair. The streaks of blood under the nose, around the corners of the mouth, and everywhere else. The appearance of death. It was the way she knew she herself had looked very recently.

If she'd ever had her father's ability to shape shift, she would have chosen a body that was stronger. Less weak, less afraid.

"Katie?"

"Yeah, I'm going." she stood up, reluctantly letting herself admit how tired she was. "Can I use your shower?"

"Of course."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"I _highly _recommend that you don't check out now, Mr. Porter." the receptionist said. "I paged your doctor, he'll be down any minute. Please, for your own health, stay at least one more night."

Dean moaned, trying to turn the sound into a cough on the way out. The receptionist wasn't fooled and continued to beg him to stay.

"Look, lady." he cut her off. "If you say one more word to try to keep me here, I will call the police. You can't keep me here against my will, and my will is to get out of here. Now."

Dean's doctor came up behind him. "Dean..."  
"Don't you start, too. I'm leaving. Give me whatever meds I need and some bandages, and I'm out of here."

"I'll let you go."

"What?" the receptionist looked as shocked as Dean. "Sir, he's..."

"I know his condition, Carol." the doctor said calmly. "Dean, you can go. I would just suggest that you keep 911 on speed dial at all times. One wrong move and you're going to have more internal and external bleeding than you know what to do with."

"For crying out loud. You think you can scare me into staying? Just give me my meds, Doc. I have to go get my baby brother."

"Why don't you stay here. I'll go get him for you. Or we can send the police, they would take great care of him and bring him here for you."  
"Yeah, that won't be easy if they don't know where he is." Dean growled. The room was spinning under his feet, and the doctor sounded like he was speaking from the other end of a tunnel. If he leaned against the desk, though, his already weak argument was going completely down the drain.

"You don't know where he is either, do you? Why not just let the police handle it?"

"Look, I'm leaving. You can't force me to stay. I'm the only one who can find Sam."

He grabbed the form from the startled receptionist and finished filling it out, then signed with a flourish. Staring pointedly at the doctor, he dropped the pen on the desk and stalked out.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

The silence had been too long. After Logan and Katie had discussed every option they could think of, they had finally decided that staying here in Logan's apartment, caring for Sam with the limited medical knowledge they had between the two of them, was best. Hide and wait.

Katie walked over to the stereo, her bare feet sinking into the lush, thick carpet.

She knew this place; the tastefully chosen color palate of the walls, the neatly organized bookshelves, the incredibly plump leather sofa that now was doubling as Sam's hospital bed. Logan had done a good job of keeping the place the way it had always been.

She'd used to live here, too. Before her mother died...their mother. It had been her, Logan, and their mom against the world. When they'd been kids, it hadn't been the American dream. Not with Allison worn out from burning the candle at both ends in her attempts to provide for them; but it had been good. Allison had made major efforts to give her kids the little things in life; things that Katie never got from Lewis. Ice cream cones, trips to the playground, swim team, birthday parties.

Logan's father had walked out before he was even born; to both of them, Allison had been their only real parent.

Now that she was twenty-one, Katie more fully appreciated what her mom had been through. The fear of discovering the shifter race, the roller coaster of falling in love with one, the rejection of an abusive husband, and finally, being pinned with the guilt of her daughter's critical illness, shortly before her own murder.

Allison's history was tragic.

Katie turned on the stereo, smiling as the notes began to pour out of the speakers. She'd known this was the song that was going to come on. It was the only thing Allison had ever played. She'd bought the CD, which Logan had later ripped to iTunes when Katie had fallen in love with the song.

It had all started with the nightmares...Katie had started having them when she was seven; nightmares that she would morph into a hideous beast, and that the kids at school would shoot her. Allison had first convinced Katie that none of her fellow second graders were packing, and then that she wouldn't turn into a monster. Katie could still remembering hiccuping with sobs as she continued to drown her mother in "what ifs". What if I do, what if I can't change back, what if I can't go back to school, what if you don't like me any more.

Allison hadn't ever been great at words; music was the way she really sold her point. That was the first night Katie had heard _Make You Feel My Love._ The way Allison had sung the words to her had given her faith, hope...all those cheesy words. Her favorite part was "I've known it from the moment that we met, no doubt in my mind where you belong."

In music's crazy way, it had provided assurance that she wasn't losing her mother's love.

But she had lost it. And not in a way that any of them would have ever planned for.

Now, the song lyrics were slowly coming to mean something else.

When she'd sung it over the loudspeaker to Sam, she'd begun to pour meaning into the words.

She dug her nails into her palms. She couldn't go there. It was probably just pity and guilt.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean had never been so grateful for the spare key under the Impala's bumper in his life. Baby roared to life as he turned the key in the ignition, but he didn't take it out of park; he found himself suddenly frozen in indecision. He had no idea where Sam was. No leads, nothing. Even more, now that he was out of the hospital, he was doubting his logic that Sam was even in trouble.

But if his brother had ditched him, why was the car still here?

Dean clenched his jaw and shifted into drive.

"I'm coming, Sammy."


	5. Inhumanity

CHAPTER 5

Dean tucked the fake FBI badge back inside his jacket. Ignoring the raging pain in his side, he followed the guard down the hallway. If he didn't give away that he was about to keel over, burst his stitches, and bleed all over the PD floor, maybe he could pull this interrogation off. He'd made up a fake story to get this close; he wouldn't have to hold up much longer. Sam was closer than ever.

"Now, you're sure this is the same girl?" he inquired, wishing the guard would slow down a little.

"It's gotta be." the guard said. "This one tried to murder one of her patients with blood thinner. Your suspect actually killed someone the same way, right? This has to be your girl. The hospital red flagged her for suspicious behavior, and we caught her withdrawing everything from her checking account a day later. Think she was getting ready to run."

"Sounds like her; she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I can take it from here. Cell 5, right?"

The man hesitated, his slightly balding head catching the light. "I'm not supposed to let anyone into the cells unattended."  
Dean pulled the badge out and waved it in the guard's face. "Bernie...Bernie, right? I hate to pull rank, but..."  
The guard nodded, his plump, un-shaved face going red in frustration. "Yes _sir._" he shook his head. "Here's the key."

Dean nodded and smiled until the man had turned and begun to walk away. Bernie's footsteps rang in his ears as he stepped closer to the cell.

"Remember, if you kill her, she can't give you answers." Dean muttered to himself.

He clicked the cell open, smiling at the prisoner.

"Hello, Chelsea."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam was drowning. He could feel it; not on his skin, necessarily, but in his lungs. He couldn't convince the oxygen to get past the water and into his brain. Cold, unforgiving, heavy, the water in his mind weighed down. He was suffocating. Gasping, he opened his eyes. He wasn't drowning; not really. Not on a couch.

"Hey, Sam! Sam, calm down. Can you hear me?"

It was Katie's voice, but it was coming from another dimension. Far away, where the oxygen was.

"Here, here..."

The too-familiar plastic mask slipped across his mouth and nose again, and after a few minutes, he had enough oxygen in him to be able to see and be sure of his consciousness.

"Katie." he croaked.

"Hey." she pushed her hair behind her ears and smiled shakily. He could barely focus enough to tell, but he wondered if somehow her face was fuller, or more colored...she didn't seem to be shaking as much, either. There was something about her, with a dark sweater on, her hair falling in smooth curls around her face. The image of the skin-and-bones girl in a white nurse's dress, who could barely stand on her own feet, throwing up behind her tangled locks was fading behind this newer, healthier one. Was she getting better? Had she been sick, or just abused by her captor, like he had been?

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'm okay. How you feeling?"

He moaned. "How am I still alive?"

She smiled a little. "We kind of found some replacements for a couple of your missing pieces, Puzzle Man."

"Yeah? How'd you do that?"

"Well...I know how to put organs in and take them out...and my brother knows how to steal them. And you're on some dialysis and other fun stuff."

"That's convenient." he tried to tease, but his voice came out so weak that it almost sounded like an accusation.

She slid out of her chair and onto her knees beside Sam, grabbing his hand. Hers was warm, and he let himself wrap his around it. She didn't move for a long moment. When she did, it startled Sam; he'd been falling asleep.

The words barely reached his ears, Katie's slightly rough voice quieter than it have ever been in the hospital-prison-darkness.

"I am so sorry."  
He clutched her hands in his, drawing strength from looking her in the eyes. "Don't. You saved my life. If it wasn't for you, I would be dead."

"If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be here at all!" she cried.

Sam's mind whirled. She wasn't kidding, obviously, so what was she trying to tell him?

"Katie...that's not funny."

"I know. I know it's not." Sam's hands fell from hers as she pressed her palms to her forehead, rocking back and forth. "It's all my fault."

"Tell me what's going on."

She pulled her hands away from her face, leaving two round, red pressure marks. Her breath came in short gasps of panic as she began to open her whole story before him, pausing to compose herself almost every half sentence, but picking up speed as she went; even pounding her fists in her lap in rage towards the end, her pretty face scrunched up in agonized hatred. Reddened, wet, outraged.

He felt like he'd been hit with a boulder by the time she'd finished.

Lewis was her father. He was being drained of life because she was sick; she really was the reason he was here.

She really was getting better. But not coincidentally.

He looked up at her face, her eyes wide as she anxiously waited for him to say something. He realized how long she must have been waiting as she pulled back, her shoulders slumping.

"Sam?" she whispered, averting her eyes. "Don't block me out."

He didn't say anything...couldn't say anything. Like a thick fog, the words he groped for and wanted were hidden, smothered by his conflicting emotions.

"Sam? Please...please say something...Just, please."

"My brother." he said.

She shot him a confused look, so he explained. "Can I use a phone? I need to call my brother."

"Aren't we going to talk about..."  
"Katie." he said warningly.

He waited as she seemed to mull it over, then slowly nodded at him. "Okay."

He made sure their hands didn't touch as she handed him the phone, but he was so eager to talk to Dean that it didn't really matter. He dialed the number as fast as he could, almost hugging the phone to his face. He almost felt like he was going home. Moments away from hearing his brother's voice...

But he hadn't expected it over voice mail.

He fought away the panic, avoiding Katie's sympathetic gaze.

He dialed every other number Dean had, coming up completely dry every time. He would have thrown the phone across the room if he had the strength.

Katie knelt and wrapped her arms over him. "I'm so sorry." she whispered.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

"Well, look who decided not to bleed to death." Chelsea leaned forward, biting her lip seductively. "How'd you find me?"

Dean flashed the FBI badge at her, and she laughed.

"Nice." She crossed her legs and pulled them up to her chest, leaning her head back against the wall.

"I'd offer you a beer, but I'm out at the moment." she drawled lazily, closing her eyes as if he was an old friend who had dropped by her front porch to visit on a hot summer afternoon.

"You've got five seconds to tell me why you tried to off me." he said, keeping his voice down.

"Oh, you know. You were boring; once I saw past those big green eyes and cute lips, you were just a pile of sappy-broken-hearted-nothing. I couldn't deal with it; thought I'd do the world a favor and free it of your sorry face."

"You weren't all sunshine and roses yourself; I didn't try to bleed you to death though."

"And I appreciate that." she smiled again, still not opening her eyes. "I suppose you want me to tell you who I work for?"

"I want to know what happened to my brother." he growled.

"Oh?" her lips puckered out in an innocent thinking face. "Why do you think I know something?"

He didn't even grace the question with an answer.

"Well, I'm not telling." She sat up and met his gaze, she crossing her arms and batting long, gorgeous eyelashes at him. "What are you going to do about it?"

He smiled a little. "I was kinda hoping you would ask me that."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Bernie turned the page of the action novel he was reading, groping for his coffee with one hand. He wasn't seeing a word on the page, though. The FBI agent in the cell with his prisoner kept nagging at his thoughts. He kept brushing it off, but something didn't seem right.

The coffee was cold.

Disgusted, he spit it back into the cup. Cold coffee was alright in the summer, but not now. Not in the winter.

Propelled by his frustration over the beverage, he rose to his feet. The agent had been in the cell with his suspect long enough. Bernie was done being just a guard. He was going to confront his suspicions. He took a huge step forward.

"Where you going, man?"

Never mind, there he was. Bernie took a step back, but squared his shoulders. "Nowhere. Did you get what you needed?"

The agent nodded seriously, but there was a trace of a satisfied smile playing behind his eyes. "Yeah, I think so. Thank you, Bernie."

Bernie nodded, still not convinced that everything was alright. He ran his eyes up and down the man suspiciously. Was that...

"Is that blood?" he pointed.

The tall man raised an eyebrow, looking concerned for a moment. "Am I bleeding?"

"On your cheek."

The man reached up and wiped the red away. "Must have cut myself shaving. Thanks, man...here's your key back. I'm going to talk to the chief now."

The agent man walked out, shutting the door behind him.

Bernie pressed the key into his hand, walking towards the cell for a moment, trying to look calm. He gave that up quickly and broke into a run. The FBI man hadn't just had blood on his hand. It had been on his hand, and on his shirt. Not much, but enough for Bernie to know that it hadn't been a shaving accident.

He slid around the corner, just like he'd seen in the movies. Darn this small town that only had one prisoner in its cells; there could have been witnesses. Now it was just his word against the word of the FBI agent.

The girl was sitting on the bench in her cell; her feet were solidly planted on the floor, and her back was rigid. Her hands were folded in her lap, white as they clenched themselves together.

Her hair, the groove over her full lips, the dip of her neck right above her collarbone, and her lap were full of blood.

"Hey, are you alright?" he shouted.

Her eyes moved slowly over and looked at him. Even though her hands were squeezed so tight together, their shaking was obvious. She parted her lips, expelling a spout of the red liquid from her mouth.

"Word of advice." he could barely hear her words, and stepped closer to the cell. She licked her lips slowly before speaking the next sentence, the blood staining her chin and teeth. "Never get in between Sam and Dean Winchester."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam was finally asleep, after about an hour of Katie trying to assure him that Dean wasn't dead, and that he was probably already trying to find his brother. She'd finally called the hospital to check, despite the risk of Lewis finding out, and found out that Dean had checked out two days before. Sam had almost cried from relief right before drifting to sleep.

Katie sat down on the arm of the couch, watching the machine carefully to make sure that it was doing its job properly. It had taken Logan a full twenty four hours to locate and confiscate the dialysis machine, and now that Sam had been hooked up to it for a few hours, she was gradually allowing herself to hope. She smiled about what Sam had said. How convenient it was for her brother to have a job as a hospital technician.

She'd known, deep down, that something in Logan's instinct had just...known. He'd gone to college to be a small business owner, but when she'd gotten sick, he'd suddenly begun this job. When she'd asked him, he'd just shrugged. "It might come in handy eventually."

"Did you know?" she asked suddenly.

Logan, clearing away the stack of food wrappers they'd built up, looked at her curiously, and she remembered that she was in her head. She voiced her thoughts.  
"When I got sick and you took the job at the hospital, you told me that it might come in handy. Did you somehow know this would happen?"

He sighed and sat back on his heels. "I don't know what I was thinking."

She raised an eyebrow, silently prodding him on.

He shoved the wrappers into a small garbage bag, chewing on his lip before continuing. "All I know is that I had tried to get the police involved; I called in an anonymous tip, but they were too late and Lewis was gone. I don't know; when I realized he had outsmarted me I just kind of took things into my own hands. I didn't know how it would play out."

Katie stared at him. "Wait, you called him in to the police?"

"Yeah, I tried. Not recently, but before I got this job." he dropped the bag on the table, an empty can inside banging as it came in contact with the wood surface. "It didn't work. Katie, what else was I supposed to do? I couldn't just leave you to be his puppet."

"You know how dangerous he is! He could have killed you!"

"Well, he didn't, okay? Not me." Lewis said, his voice rising slightly.

"Not you?" she was shouting now.

"Not me! Mom!" He shouted back.

Katie's heart exploded, raining down around her in silent, hot ashes that burned to the touch.

"What?" she didn't hear the sound of the word leaving her mouth; she was in a vacuum.

The look on his face was worse than death; the regret of realizing what he had just said, and the horror of the memory. He got up and stumbled out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

She heard his car start and rumble away, but she couldn't make herself get up and go after him.

Her fingers were numb as she picked up the phone and dialed. Her voice came out so calm and steady that she wasn't even sure it was hers.

"Hello? Yes. I have a tip about a murder. His name is Daniel Lewis; you'll find evidence at the old hospital on Lark. No, I don't want to give you my name."

And she hung up.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Broken glass, rusted metal, dust, and an overall sense of morbidity coated the floor of the abandoned neighborhood. The neighborhood had been deserted when an earthquake a few years back had destroyed most of it. The hospital had been the only remaining standing structure; it had housed a few refugees for a brief period of time, but one by one, the people had all mysteriously disappeared. Chelsea hadn't told Dean exactly why the shifter had taken the refugees, but he could only guess that it was for the same reason Sam had been taken. A reason he hadn't had time to pull from Chelsea. She had only assured him that if he hurried, his brother would still be alive.

Dean squared his shoulders as he looked around at the endless piles of debris. Only something hideous and inhuman could live here, could even step in here without being spooked just a little.

And of course Lewis would be here, taking victims; wasn't that what Dean was searching for? Something hideous and inhuman?

But then he had to consider something; he was here. And he wasn't spooked, not even a little. So what did that make him? Chelsea's blood was still drying on the knife that he'd tucked away in the waistline of his slacks. Didn't that make him some sort of monster?

It was love. It was what he was. Not what he had, not what he felt. He _was_ love for Sam. It drove him to everything he ever did. A deep, possibly unhealthy need to be everything his baby brother ever needed absolutely ruled Dean. Without boundaries. Through hell and back. Through death, through betrayal, through lies, and back. He had given up everything. For a messed up, shaggy haired, ex junkie who had let Dean down more times than he would ever be able to count, even if he wanted to.

Love must be the most paradoxical idea in the universe; the very idea that makes a person human and inhuman at the same time.


	6. Beat of My Heart

"Katie, what's wrong?"

Katie jerked out of her stupor, the coffee cup in her hand almost dropping to the floor.

Sam was staring at her from the couch. There was too much staring going on between the two of them, she decided. Way too much staring. Too much staring and not enough peace. Not enough easy conversations.

She wanted to tell him to shut up and go back to sleep, while she squeezed her coffee cup so hard that she didn't spill out everything to him. But she couldn't keep the truth from falling out. "I called the police."

His expression brightened. "Good. We can't do anything...there might be enough evidence for them to..."  
"No, you don't understand." she cut him off. "Last time the police got involved, my mother died."

His jaw worked as he processed that.

"Lewis is too smart. Too far ahead of everyone else. I don't know how he does it, but I'm afraid to cross him again." she steeled herself to present her idea to him. "We have to get out of here. I don't know what else we could do. When Logan gets back, we'll drive until we can't drive any more. We'll get new names. Fake passports. Disappear."  
"My brother. He's looking for me. We can't go anywhere." Sam countered.

"He'll find you. You know he will. We have to go, Sam."

"Okay, but by that logic, your dad will find us, too! You just said he's smart."

Anger that rarely existed in her flared out. "Don't you dare call that monster my 'dad'! Don't!"

"I'm sorry. _Lewis_." Sam corrected himself gently. "Katie, we aren't going anywhere conspicuously. Not with me like this. Okay? We won't make it. Our best shot is to stay here. To stay safe."

"But he found Logan last time. Found mom. We stay, he's going to find us again. We'll die." she countered. "We can't stay here."

Sam sighed, reaching up and running his hand through his thick hair. It was the biggest movement she'd seen him make since rescuing him; inside, she knew he was right. He wasn't going anywhere secretly. He wouldn't make it.

"Katie..." he began.

"Don't." she begged, knowing the speech she was about to get.

"Look, let's be honest, okay? I'm gone no matter what happens. I'm not going to make it, even if we go to a hospital, which we obviously can't do."  
"Stop."  
He was ignoring her. "Look, right now the most important thing is to find the option that keeps you alive, okay? Not me. You."

"I want you alive too." it sounded so dumb, the second it came out of her mouth. But it was the truth.

"Katie..."

Saved by the bell, Katie's phone began ringing. Good. Logan. He could help her argue some sense into Sam.

"Hey." she answered it.

"Hello, Katie."

The world around her slammed on its brakes. This couldn't be happening. Not to her, not now. The phone bumped and rattled against her cheek as her hands began to shake. She sank down onto the edge of the coffee table. "Lewis. Where's Logan?" she tried to sound confident, but it didn't come out that way. "Where is he?" she repeated, more urgently.

Sam motioned for her to put it on speaker phone. Good; she had no idea what she was doing. Panic surged up in her heart and overflowed out of her eyes. Please, Sam, do the talking for me. I'm going to mess this up.

He seemed to read her telepathic message and began speaking; slowly, calmly.

"Mr. Lewis, this is Sam Winchester."  
"Put my daughter back on the phone, you piece of meat!" Lewis shouted.

"I'm still here...dad." Katie tried to imitated Sam's calm tone, but her voice still trembled. Sam nodded at her, making a slow, downward motion with his open palm. Keep it calm. Got it.

Katie looked at Sam, waiting for him to speak again, but he shook his head. She got it. Lewis didn't want to talk to the "piece of meat".

"Dad, where's Logan?"

"He's here and safe." Katie exhaled in relief as Lewis continued. "You know, Katie, you're lucky he's alive. When I found out he existed, I could have killed him. But I didn't. Katie, honey, come home. I don't want to do something drastic, here, okay? I just want you to get better."

"I _am_ getting better, Lewis. I mean...Dad."

"But not completely. Come on, Katie. If you won't listen to me..."  
There was a moment of silence, then Logan's voice filled the room.

"Katie?"

"Are you okay?"

"Katie..." he yelped shortly. "Just bring Sam, okay?"

"You know I can't do that. Did he hurt you?"

More silence.  
"You have to bring him." Lewis was there again. "Do it, Katie."

Sam reached over and took the phone, ended the call, and laid the phone back on the table.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean let himself audibly release a moan as he pulled away the bandaging on his side. The dumpster he had propped himself up against was smelly, even in the freezing cold. It smelled like animals had been using the bin as some sort of food storage, then forgotten about it, leaving it to rot. Some of them had probably died in there, as well. Dean wiped his nose and squinted up at the gray sky, which was shooting down wet, white, flakes that were quickly thickening. Miserably, he put a small handful of snow over his wound, pulled the bandage and his shirt back over it, and somehow got back onto his feet.

The snow had made him realize something that made him wish for his brother even more. As he plodded through the gradually freezing slush and snow, he sarcastically started whistling to himself, thinking of how Sam would have laughed at him if he was here.

_We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas..._

That was all of the song he knew, so after repeating a few times, he fell silent, listening to the slow crunch of his feet in on the frozen ground.

He had had enough of whistling, anyway. He needed to focus every bit of his energy on getting Sam safe.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam watched his breath cloud out of his mouth and nose. Little, short, puffs, like small rain clouds, were gone an instant after he breathed them. Just keep making more; that was the goal. Because if the clouds stopped, that meant his breath stopped. Which meant his heart stopped, which meant his life stopped.

It was much harder to breath, now that he didn't have the oxygen mask. But focusing on breathing was keeping his mind occupied. Merry Christmas, Dean.

He moved his hips slightly to the left, trying to relieve the intense pressure in his side. He wasn't sure what it was from, but it didn't seem to matter. Not at this point. It could be any of his multiple wounds, or maybe one of his new organs trying to shut down. The chains around his waist jingled, causing the ones on his wrists and feet to protest in a metallic, jumbled melody.

He hadn't been awake when Katie had made the decision. When she'd somehow dragged him into her car and brought him here; back to the hospital where he'd been prisoner only days before, he'd been completely unconscious and unwilling. He'd begged her not to go, even agreeing that they should try to run, but she would have none of it. He didn't even want it for himself; he just needed to die knowing that she was alright.

The dying part wasn't going to be a problem. He felt colder than ever; and he knew it wasn't just because of the weather. His brain, his blood, and his nerves all felt as if they were slowing to a sludge. He didn't even feel much pain; just the dull ache of dying. He considered how odd it was that he already knew what death felt like. Had all the deaths before been practice, leading up to this one? The permanent one?

He coughed weakly, spurting red across his face and chest. He almost choked on it; more evidence that the earth was losing its grasp on his existence. Or something cheesy like that. He was just plain-out dying.

He wondered which after-world would claim him this time around.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Katie stood on the observation platform, over the surgery room that she and Lewis had stood so many times, watching his victims struggle for life, and even die. It was here that she'd stood and sung to Sam, though. The one good memory of this place that she could cling to. Even that one moment was marred with the evil of her biological father. And now, it was being marred again by the horror of seeing her brother, bound and blindfolded, occasionally struggling against his chains. Lewis breathed down her neck.

"I'll let him go now." he hissed in her ear. "He's free. Tell him goodbye, flower."

Now he was using nicknames with her? Katie ignored the confusion in her head and pressed the buzzer down. "Logan?"

"Katie!" his voice mingled with horror and relief.

"You can go." she said. "I'll come down and untie you."  
"No, you won't." Lewis said behind her. "I don't want you pulling anything, flower. I'll go do it."

"Don't hurt him." she protested weakly.

After Lewis went downstairs to untie Logan, Katie walked down the hall towards Sam's room, pulling at the short hem of her nurse dress as she went. She couldn't remember if it had always been this scratchy and thin, but it was bothering her immensely at the moment; the vulnerability, the bareness, the formality. The father she had never known as a father, but as a monster. Something that had bothered her as a little kid, and then had disappeared under the flood of rage and hatred, loss, and now, absolutely exhaustion.

The plan had always been to flee as soon as Logan was free. It was still the plan.

She pushed aside the door and went into the room, gasping at the instant blast of cold that hit her. Why was Lewis refusing to turn on the heat; how much further could he extend his cruelty? She found a blanket to drape over her friend, and pulled a tall stool up beside him, rubbing his hands feverishly between her own, one at a time, blowing warm breath against them to create as much heat as she could.

"Sam?"

He was still, and for a moment her heart dropped. He couldn't have died...she hadn't said goodbye.

Her fingers flew to his neck. Still a pulse. Barely noticeable, but it was there.

"Sam..." she trailed off, letting herself run her fingers through his hair, across his broad cheekbones, and back again to his hair, pushing it behind his ear. Something in her gut was telling her to pull away, that she couldn't afford to do this, but she ignored it. If somehow her plan didn't work, and Sam died, she wanted to have had this; something small to keep as a memory. She wanted to know what he looked like, not just with her eyes, but in her bones. She wanted to feel it. Etch him into her skin so that no one could take him away.

And he barely knew she existed; all he saw her as was a victim who had cost him his life. He would die before he could love her.

A hot tear splashed on his forehead, and she realized she was crying, like some stupid chick flick. This was unacceptable. She had a scan with Lewis, anyway. And after that, they would run.

She couldn't help herself as she turned to leave, though. Her lips brushed Sam's for a brief moment, and then she slipped through the door, closing it firmly behind her.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Dean could have cried in relief at the sight of the hospital if he was into that kind of thing. Instead, he barreled onward, clattering through the doors before remembering that he was supposed to be in stealth mode. He closed the door gingerly behind him and stepped around a loud-looking pane of cracked glass. His brother was here, he could feel it.

But if Sam was here...

He tightened his fingers around the pure iron knife, his eyes darting back and forth and up and down. Surely a monster so clever as Lewis would know he was here by now.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Katie fell to the ground, collapsing against the locked door. Her shoulder felt like it had been crushed to a pulp by her futile attempts to break the door down; she felt so pathetic. The door was flimsy, but she had never gotten over 5'4'', and the illnesses had rendered her weak and skinny.

Lewis decided that she needed a new heart. Sam had survived thus far, but it was the end. She couldn't save him.

Hopeless, picturing what Lewis was about to do to Sam, she used the only weapon she had left. She started screaming. Her voice ripped through her, burning her throat, but she kept screaming, wrenching at her hair in grief.

Her head felt like it would explode as she began pounding on the door with her fists, not willing to give up. Finally, exhausted and oxygen deprived from panic, she dropped her now bloodied hands into her lap.

Then the seizures started. Her teeth rattled with the intensity of them; she'd never had seizures before. All she could do was curl herself into a tight ball on the floor, tears running down her cheeks as she silently shook.

Maybe she was going to die even before Sam would. Maybe that was a mercy. She wouldn't have to live to see what she'd done.

She let go of her legs, stretching her body out and letting the seizures do their work.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam slowly opened his eyes and stared up at Lewis.

Great. Now the end was really here.

"Where's Katie?" his voice sounded like he'd been gargling with gravel.

"She tried to get in the way of me taking what rightly belongs to her. Funny, how she won't protect herself, isn't it?"  
"What belongs to her?"

"That thumper in your chest, of course. She needs your heart."

Sam closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself. Of course. It had to end this way.

"Lewis, please..."  
"What, you're going to beg to let you live? Let you live, so Katie can slowly die? My own daughter, rot away before my eyes, while you go back to your little, pointless life? I know you. You'll kill my kind, but Katie isn't my kind. She's the kind you save. You're not willing to sacrifice yourself for her?"

Sam was silent. He was going to die anyway, in his condition. Why not die for Katie?

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

The ceiling above her was incredibly blurry; she wondered if she was concussed from hitting her head on the floor during the seizures. She wasn't dead; that was slightly disappointing. Her stomach flipped over and over as she thought of Sam, and her hands flew to her face to hide from the world.

Suddenly, she was more terrified than she had ever thought possible. The hands on her face was not hers. Big, calloused hands covered her eyes.

Screeching she pulled away from them, sitting up and sliding against the wall. Long, lanky legs trailed behind her.

She stopped screaming and stared at them, completely unable to process what was happening. Maybe she really was dead, and this was hell. They were trying to freak her out. Suddenly, it hit her. She stood up slowly, gasping at the height she was at, and moved to the mirror in this examination room. Grasping the sides of the sink, she nodded slowly as she took in the image in the mirror. She reached up and ran her fingers along the chiseled jawline, over the broad forehead...

Turning around, she saw the crumpled, slimy pile of skin in the corner.

She had shifted.

Into Sam Winchester.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN


	7. Coming Out

Katie sat in the imitation-Sam body. The gown she'd found barely covered it. The broad shoulders, the hair that tickled the back of her neck instead of falling halfway down her back, the...man-ness...

She couldn't take her eyes off of the skin she'd spent the past 21 years in. It was just crumpled in pieces on the floor on the other side of the room, discarded with the little white dress.

Girl skin. Small.

She wouldn't even be able to get her new leg into that. How had she been so tiny before? The bright ginger braid slumped, defeated, at the top of the slimy mess. She already missed it. Katie wrapped her arms around her, unsure if she was about to panic or just burst out laughing. Maybe both.

This body was huge. That was just about all she could think about. Huge and muscular. And man. It was a man's body. Did that make her a man now? She still felt like a girl. She was still Katie. Katie Martin, daughter of Allison Martin. Being half blood of a monster named Daniel Lewis did not make her a Lewis. It only was providing a bit of a setback for her at the moment, physically speaking.

Speaking.

Did she still have her own voice?  
Her mouth, circled by a two or three day stubble, slowly opened, and she commanded her vocal chords.

"Ehhhh." she hummed.

The deep tone vibrated through her spine, and she flung her hand over her mouth, her eyes bugging.

Sam's voice.

She was half tempted to talk to herself, to hear what he sounded like when he was healthy.

It was a little too creepy, so she kept quiet and tried to collect her thoughts instead.

At the forefront of her mind was the horror of the reality that she was literally living in. She had shifted. It was impossible. Completely impossible. She had never shifted, and she was never supposed to shift. Half human. But there was her skin, on the other side of the room. And here she was, in a different body. So what had happened?

It hit her, swirling around her and taking her breath away. The panic, the frenzied hopelessness. That was what had made her change.

Different panic had filled her when Lewis had first captured Sam. Different hopelessness when she'd been forced to personally do the surgeries to collect his organs. Different when she'd had to bring him back again after escaping. Handing him directly into the hands of his murderer.

This was different. It was the lack of all hope. Even all the fool's hopes she had clung to up to this point had vaporized, leaving her hollow. Her instincts must have kicked in and done for her what she could not do for herself.

And if her instincts were to shift the cells of her body into something new, then they had done their job.

Suddenly, the inevitable "what do I do next" was answered, so vibrant and obvious that it pushed her to her feet.

This body was huge. Muscular. Sam.

The hiccup of being stuffed into another body had became less of a hiccup and more of an unbelievable, wonderful advantage.

Not the skinny, weakened body of a dying girl, Katie, but the body of an oversized hunter, accustomed to physical exertion. Committed to it, even.

The door that separated her and Sam didn't stand a chance. Still, she was almost surprised as it flew out from her foot, slamming into the opposite wall of the hallway.

"Shh!" she scolded it.

Giddy with her new found power, Katie set the door back in place the best she could and took off down the hall.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sometimes, energy was like a funnel. There was so very much of it at the beginning, rushing and coursing through, trying to get to its goal, and then there was less and less, until it all just slipped out the bottom.

As Dean's feet turned to jelly and he fell, barely catching himself with his hands, he realized that his energy was almost at the bottom of the funnel.

He had only hit this point a few times in his life. Usually, the concern for his brother drove him far beyond normal human limits, but even that amount of adrenaline had its boundaries. Running around for two days with a bleeding liver, for example. That seemed like it would be a boundary.

His head thudded dully against the ocean-colored hospital wallpaper as he surrendered to the bottom of the funnel. Blood dripped lazily onto the floor below him, despite his efforts to hold it in with a bandana and his hands.

Maybe he was wrong, and Sam wasn't here at all. Chelsea had probably lied to him. To get him here so he would be good and lost with no help, no phone. Tortured victims would say anything to make the pain stop, and someone as smart as Chelsea most likely could lie convincingly. Sparing herself while preserving the secrets of whatever giant mastermind was yanking her strings. He imagined her as a lifeless puppet, wooden limbs jerking out as her unblinking eyes flirted him into danger's path. Her lips didn't move, but she wove lies with them.

He was never going to see Sam again.

And somewhere across the hospital, Katie Martin kicked down a door. Not that Dean knew that that was exactly what had happened, but it was a noise in a place that was supposed to be dead. That was enough.

He was on his feet and moving on before the sound had finished echoing.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Katie forced herself to breathe slowly as Lewis charged back into the room. The restraints that she'd managed to fasten loosely around her wrists and ankles were damp. She was trying not to think about the possibilities of what was causing the moisture. Blood, maybe. Hopefully only sweat.

She could feel Lewis' eyes digging into the top of her head.

She'd heard the saying "complicated ruse", but she could hardly imagine anything being more complicated than what she was trying to pull off. The first step would be for Lewis to decide that she was, one, Sam. And two, that she, who was actually Sam, was unconscious and innocent of all the noise that had just disturbed Lewis' evil mastermind solitude.

Time to pray for a miracle.

So she prayed. Not exactly sure to whom she was sending the request up to, but it was all she could think of to do as she waited to see if her involuntary costume was making a believer out of the monster behind her.

When a few torturous moments of silence passed and she wasn't violently ripped from the table, or screamed at, she realized that it was working.

And why shouldn't it? She looked exactly like Sam. The only reason Lewis would ever be fooled was because he was a shifter himself. And even then, there was almost no way to tell.

Time for step two.

Slowly, moaning occasionally, she pretended to wake up.

"What..." she made her voice sound as thick and confused as she possibly could.

Come on, Lewis. Take the bait. A little showmanship never killed anyone.

"Just in time, Sam. Are you ready to see the literal meaning of a bleeding heart?"  
And there it was. The puffed up sense of humor that thought it was great when in reality, it could barely be grasped as logical.

So, she told herself, indulge it.

Katie provided the desired response, gasping and trembling.

"Please, Lewis."

"Please what?"  
"Rethink this. Don't kill me. Please, you don't have to do this. Find another heart for Katie. From someone else."

"Don't want to die?" Lewis sneered.

What would Sam say? She mentally groped back to her conversation with Sam. To something he'd actually said.

The emotion built up again, the regret of having to acknowledge Sam's pleas on Logan's couch.

"_Katie..." he began._

"_Don't." she begged, knowing the speech she was about to get._

"_Look, let's be honest, okay? I'm gone no matter what happens. I'm not going to make it, even if we go to a hospital, which we obviously can't do."  
"Stop."  
He was ignoring her. "Look, right now the most important thing is to find the option that keeps you alive, okay? Not me. You." _

"_I want you alive too." _

It was hard to believe that that had been less than a day ago. She wanted Sam alive. So here she was. Fighting for his life.

"Well?" Lewis inquired impatiently.

"Look, this isn't for me." Technically true, in either case. "I don't stand a chance, and I know that. It really won't make a difference if you take my heart or not."

Lewis raised his eyebrows.

"This is for m...Katie."

Don't trip up now. You're Sam, not Katie.

Lewis barged on with the conversation, not seeming to notice her slip of tongue.

"You're doing this for Katie? If this is for my daughter, you should be giving up your heart without a moment of hesitation. " Lewis grabbed the edge of the table so he could lean closer to Sam/Katie's face. "You're saving her. If it eases your passing, you're a hero. You're saving a life."

She kept her eyes averted, knowing that if she looked at him directly, it was over.

"I realize that." she said quietly. "But think of the damage that she's undergoing. Emotionally. She's a fragile thing. You know that. She can't handle, I don't know...the guilt."  
She was forcing back tears now.

"The guilt of knowing that I'm dead because of her. She's so sweet and innocent...it'll break her."

Katie threw her biggest playing card onto the table. Making her best Sam puppy face, she looked away shyly. "She kissed me."

His reaction was disappointingly mild.

"Did she? How adorable."

Katie's heart twisted. He was mocking her.

"Lewis, I'm begging you. If you love your daughter, you have to let me live. Just long enough to die on my own. Spare Katie the pain of killing me."  
"You're a laugh. Really, Sam. I'm shocked that you actually think that I'm trying to save Katie out of love? A heartless creature like me is really doing this out of love? Fact check for you. My race is dying, and if I lose Katie, I lose my honor. My ability to prove to the others that I'm a vital part of the species. It'll be gone. A hundred years of fighting for a suitable mate. The one I got wasn't even a shifter, but I was so desperate by the time..."

He stopped himself, brushing his heavily gelled hair back into place.

"I've waited too long for this. I'm not a weak, emotional creature like yourself. I don't love my daughter! If she wasn't necessary to me, I'd probably off her myself. She inherited to much humanity. It sickens me."

Katie couldn't breathe. She hated this man. She didn't love him, and she knew he didn't love her, either.

But it was worse than that.

"You wish I was dead?" she gasped.

"Thought it might be you." he said softly. Calmly.

He'd played her.

"I knew it. Your system finally evolved. Isn't it beautiful, Katie?"

He sighed. "But that doesn't change how much of you is human. You shifted into _him._ Having a heart will just get you killed, darling." he smiled. "Ironic, considering the circumstances."

The game was up. Time for her physical advantage to play its part.

It happened so fast that she didn't even know what happened when it was over.

All she knew was that there was a man running towards her, screaming. Lewis was crumpled at her feet in a broken mess of bones.

"I did it." she whispered.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Sam woke up. He hadn't been meant to wake up. Lewis certainly hadn't intended this.

And he highly doubted that Lewis had shoved him into a broom closet.

At least, he thought it might be a broom closet. It smelled like strong cleaners, but then again, it was a hospital.

It was definitely a broom closet. He found a broom with his groping hand.

Broom closet.

Where was Katie?  
Why was he in a broom closet?

How had someone had the presence of mind, or cared enough, to throw him into a broom closet with an oxygen tank?

He breathed as deeply as he could, trying to blot out the ringing in his ears.

Katie had to be in trouble. He hadn't had another operation. Not yet. He should have, but he couldn't find any new pains or rows of sutures. Not that he would notice at this point.

Something was off.

The first step would be to get the door open.

He could never do it, and he knew it. He was too weak, too fragile. Maybe before when he'd been strong, but not now. He couldn't even move his legs. How had he been so strong before?

Don't panic.

Katie. Just focus on Katie. She needs to be rescued.

Using his fingertips to pull himself across the floor, he made the lengthy, treacherous journey to the closet door. Man in the Wilderness. Theme music? Keep moving.

He found the doorknob with his forehead. Great. Like he had needed another excuse to pass out. Stay awake.

As his ears rung from the impact, he reached up and wrapped his fingers around the cold, slippery handle.

Every bit of strength left in him surged up to his hand and turned the knob. The door opened, and Sam fell out of the broom closet, completely unconscious.


	8. Now You See Me

Dean had begun running the moment he heard the crashing sound, not taking the time to marvel at his newly discovered strength.

Sam was close.

There was complete silence as he continued to run in the direction of the crash that had pulled him to his feet only moments earlier. He needed more. Needed a clear direction to run in.

He came to a grinding halt as his hunter senses pointed out something to him. This was about where the sound had come from. And there was a door that was propped against its frame. Seizing it by the sides, he set it against a wall and rushed into the small room.

"Sam?" he gasped.

Someone had just been in this room. Judging by the fresh shifter slop in the corner, however, it hadn't been Sam.

More crashing and banging called to him from further down the hallway, pulling him away from the shifter skin.

As discreetly as he could, he crept down the hallway towards the sounds. Something wasn't right about this. Sam wouldn't make so much noise if he was escaping. Either there was a scuffle, or someone was creating a diversion.

As the sounds quieted, Dean slowed, watching carefully for danger. For shifters. For his brother.

He'd gone about forty feet when he froze, crouching in the shadows of a corner. Footsteps were rapidly approaching, clicking in a aggravated rhythm.

Dean clenched his hand over his mouth, muffling his heavy breathing as he watched the shifter move quickly towards him.

Don't see me, don't seem me...

He slowly wrapped his other hand around the silver knife at his belt. The hunter stalking his prey.

The villainous beast was approaching, slinking down the hallway in complete oblivion to its hunter.

The hunter remained hidden in the shadows, prepared to spring upon the animal at any moment, when it turned and let itself into another room. Cat like, it slunk it, shutting the door behind it.

The hunter leaned forward, waiting. Not rushing ahead too soon. Giving the prey time to feel safe.

After assuring himself that Lewis wasn't coming out anytime soon, Dean crept forward again, inching his way up from a crouching position to look through the small window in the door.

A familiar sensation rose up in his chest as he saw what was on the other side of the door. The knots in his stomach somehow loosened and tightened simultaneously.

He'd found his brother.

His brother was tied to a table, at the mercy of a shifter. The cat. The prey suddenly turned torturer and mastermind.

Dean watched intently as his brother seemed to have a discussion with his captor. Come on Sammy, let's get you out of here alive. Don't say anything emotional. Don't be emotional. Don't be stupid.

Sam looked healthy and well, and besides being tied to a table seemed to be unharmed. Good. He wasn't too late.

The conversation was becoming more heated, so Dean pressed his ear against the door, hoping to catch a few words.

The words ended, and as Dean turned his head to look through the window again, he saw that Sam had come off the table and was lunging at his captor.

Dean took that as his cue to join in, and flung the door open just in time to watch the shifter shoot his brother through the chest.

He flew across the room to where Sam had fallen, barely registering that Sam had managed to take the shifter down. The monster had crumpled at their feet, his neck twisted unnaturally, his eyes unrepentant and glassy.

"Sam!" Dean grabbed his brother's shoulders and pulled him up onto his lap, letting the kid's head rest while he examined the wound. Blood bubbled up and out of Sam's chest, leaking out vital blood. He would be dead in minutes. Dean forced himself to be calm.

"You're going to be okay. Hang on."

Sam shoved Dean's hand away and grabbed his arm, panting in pain.

"No." he gasped.

"Don't be stupid!" Dean protested, looking around frantically for something to slow the bleeding.  
"I'm not Sam!"

Dean ignored the claim. "Yes you are. You're okay. We'll get you to the hospital. It's not even that bad."

Good. A cupboard with towels in it. He put his brother's head back in his lap, holding the towel over the gaping hole.

"Listen to me! My name is Katie."

Dean would laugh if he wasn't so close to tears. "The heck are you blabbing about?"

"You're Dean, right?" Sam continued. "I'm Katie. You have to believe me." Sam-claiming-to-be-Katie pointed at the crumpled shifter. "I'm his daughter! I'm a shifter!"

Dean pulled away, reality finally sinking in. "You better start talking. Fast."

"I was trying to save Sam from my father." a cough produced a heavy slog of blood. "I switched places with him and took him to a safe place. Please, you have to believe me. You have to go to him."

"Where is he? If you're not Sam, where's my brother?" Dean forced himself not to shake the shifter.

"Go left and then down the hall until you get to... I put him in a broom closet. Somewhere my father would never look for him."

"You said you were saving him?" Dean questioned incredulously.

The creature nodded. "Hurry. Save him."

Dean's head whirled. He wasn't sure if he should kill this creature right now, or if it was Sam, and he had lost his mind. Maybe, somehow, the thing in front of him was actually telling the truth.

"Here, hold this there." he pressed a towel into the large hand and laid the head gently on the floor. "I'll be right back."

He rushed down the hall, the words ringing in his head.

_I'm not Sam._

He was so muddled that he almost tripped over the figure lying on the ground a few feet out of the opened door of the broom closet.

This is Sam.

The version of Sam he'd left gunshot and bleeding in the other room resembled his brother more than this one. For the second time in a five minute span, he fell to his knees beside a dying man. The horror of this Sam's appearance was too much to take in. The skin was thin and yellow. Blood was everywhere. Even though it had only been a week since Dean had seen Sam, his brother was almost entirely made up of skin and bone. And that without much skin left.

"Sammy?" Dean whispered. He took his brother's face in between his hands, searching frantically for a sign of awareness. Consciousness. "Come on, wake up, buddy. Sam, it's me. I broke out of the sick house to come see your sorry mug, at least show some respect and wake up."

He patted Sam's cheek, shook his shoulder, chaffed his hands. He shuddered as the cold in his brother's fingers transferred to his own. Icicle like, the digits hung limp in Dean's hands.

Finally, Sam came to with a scream.

"Hey. Sam. It's okay. It's me." Dean planted himself in his brother's line of vision. "I'm here, it's okay."

Sam's hands, shaking so much they barely would obey him, went up to Dean's shoulders, grabbing them weakly.

"Dean? Dean?"

"Yeah. Man, what happened to you?"

"Dean?" Sam still seemed to be in complete shock.

"You're right. It's me. It's Dean."

Sam's eyes began to roll back, and Dean snapped his fingers under his brother's nose.

"Hey. Stay with me."  
Sam's eyes snapped open again.

"Katie!" he exclaimed. "Where is she?"

Dean's heart dropped into his stomach.

"She's in the other room."

"We have to save her..." Sam gasped. "Save her from Lewis."

Dean shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around Sam's trembling shoulders. "You think you an walk?"

Sam whimpered, so Dean crouched and lifted him from the ground without another second of hesitation.

"Please tell me...she's still alive." Sam begged, his head rolling limply against his big brother's shoulder.

Dean forced himself to stay on his feet, ignoring his own wound. It wasn't helping his calm to realize how much lighter his brother was, how much easier to carry. "Sam, that shifter had a gun. I didn't get to her in time. I thought she was you."  
Sam gurgled. "What? You thought she was me? Why?"

"She's a shifter, man. It's what they do. She's got your face.  
Sam pulled away a little, disbelief clouding his eyes. Dean almost dropped him.

"She's not a shifter!"

"What? She said she was his daughter!"  
"She is! But she's half human! She's never shifted before!" Dean's other piece of information seemed to sink in suddenly, and Sam went rigid. "Did she get shot? Dean? Is she shot? Is she okay?"

Dean didn't have to answer as he carried his brother through the door and set him down next to a mirror image of himself. Same stupid haircut. Same oversized limbs. Same face that was still trying to hope in the good people in the world.

Katie was bleeding out, her mouth working like a fish out of water, her eyes wide in terror. Her hands, now Sam's hands, clutched at the floor, looking for something to hold on to.

At the sight of Sam, she started laughing through her tears, reaching her hand out for him.

He pulled himself closer to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. Dean watched, mesmerized by the weirdness in front of him.

"You did it." Sam whispered to her. "He's gone. It's over. You're safe."  
Katie coughed some more blood.

"Sorry I stole your body." she whispered.

Sam laughed hollowly, stopping as Katie clenched his wrist, her body rigid with pain.

"Hey, you're okay." he comforted. "Why don't you tell me how it happened? Tell me how you changed?"

Tears spilled over her cheeks as she pressed her hand over her wound.

"I think I was so scared...of losing you." She closed her eyes and sighed.

Sam patted her hand, his bloodied fingers leaving little red marks on her skin.

"Katie, stay with me, okay?"

She was wide awake suddenly, clenching him with both hands. "I don't want to die like this. Sam, I can't. I'm not a shifter. Please, help me. I have to die as me."  
Sam looked at Dean over her head. Dean's heart twisted at the sight of the tears flowing down his brother's face. He was beginning to grasp a better idea of the situation. He'd seen this look before. After the fire when Jess had been taken by the yellow eyed demon. After Sarah had talked about her daughter and then was icy cold on the floor of the hotel room moments later, Crowley laughing over the phone lines. When they'd stood in the hallway of Madison's apartment, Sam clenching the gun in his hands. It was that look all over again, and Dean couldn't take it.

"What can we do, Katie?" he asked, taking the girl's other hand.

She looked at him, surprised. "Dean?"  
"Yeah."

"I don't know. I think..." she grimaced. "This'll sound so weird."

"We're used to weird. What is it, Katie?" Sam asked gently.

"I...what changed me. It was my father. Things that he did, or gave me. I changed because I was scared. Hopeless, you know?" she started crying again. "Because I thought you were gone." she tapped Sam's hand with her finger. "I think...to change back, I have to have something human. Something that my mom gave me."

"What would that be?" Dean asked.

The ticking of the clock on the wall grew ominously loud as silence fell in the room. Dean watched Katie's face, the bravery on the Sam-like features that was so different from his brother. Courage that was newer and fresher. This wasn't a monster. It never had been.

Sam broke it the silence.

"Dean, can we have a minute?"

Dean, startled out of his reverie, nodded. "I'll be right outside."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

It was so incredibly weird for Sam to sit on the floor of the operation room, his murderer dead at his feet, and himself in his arms. His body that was encasing someone...Someone. He didn't even know what to call her in his mind. He was about to lose her, though, and the thought of it was too painful. She had fought too hard, striven too sweetly and purely for this. To end like this, defeated by her father's bullet and his genetics, wouldn't be acceptable.

He knew what to give her.

The door had clicked shut behind Dean, and Sam just sat still, holding Katie as she gasped for breath in harmony with him.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to give you something human." he said, his tongue almost too dry to form the words.

"What?" her face crinkled in confusion.

"You gave it to me, I'm just giving it back now." he said. "Close your eyes."

"I'm afraid to!" she sobbed.

"Okay, okay. That's okay. It's going to be alright." he told her.

When they had been kids, Sam had never liked the way Dean so naturally was talented with his voice. It was a kind of rough, rock and roll sound that Sam had never acquired. A sense of pitch that never had graced his ears. But that didn't seem to matter right now.

"You never sang the last verse of that song your mom taught you." he told Katie.

"Sam. I really don't think I can sing right now." she whispered.

He closed his eyes, drawing as much strength as he could. His own life was slipping away, but he had to save hers first. Return the favor.

"That's okay. Because I know the last verse."

Here goes nothing.

_I could make you happy_

_Make your dreams come true_

_Nothing that I wouldn't do_

_Go to the ends of the Earth for you_

_To make you feel my love_

_To make you feel my love_

When he'd finished, Katie was shuddering violently. Sam grabbed her, holding her head to his chest. Her skin fell in nasty, oozing strips and sheets, but he kept holding onto her, humming tunelessly in an effort to comfort her.

Finally, like a newborn baby, she was there. Red hair coursing down her shoulders and around her pale face. She felt like a doll in his arms compared to the size she had just been.

Her delicate fingers were still in his, and for a moment he thought she was dead. He took the towel that she'd been holding against her wound and covered her with it, clearing away the discarded skin so she could be relatively clean and comfortable.

"Katie?" he breathed.

She opened her eyes, the vivid greenness of them piercing into him.

"Did it..." she looked down at herself, relaxing as she realized what had happened. She twisted a lock of her hair over her fingers, taking it in slowly. Then she looked up at him, putting her tiny hand on his cheek, studying his eyes as if she wanted them to take up all the room in her memory.

"I'm me." she smiled.

Then she was gone.


	9. Chapter 9

It had taken Dean three tries to fold Sam's jacket that neatly. He could have just crumpled it into a ball before packing it into his brother's bag, but he wouldn't have ever gotten away with that. Sam would know. And probably not be too happy, even though Dean _was_ going to the trouble to pack the bag for him in the first place.

Sighing, Dean zipped the bag up, picked up his own significantly less neatly packed duffel, and headed out through the frigid January air towards the Impala.

He had no idea where he was going.

Three years ago, he would have driven straight to the Roadhouse. Or Bobby's. Or called for Cas.

Even the prophet was gone now. Dean tried to ban that more recent tragedy far from his thoughts, but it simply joined in the chorus of losses. A chorus that had lost all its sheet music, all sense of pitch, and was droning haunting, melancholy tones in his head, its sole goal to drive him out of his mind with grief and guilt.

He reached across to Sam's seat, wincing as his healing wound protested dully. It looking less like a wound and more like a scar since he'd gotten the stitches out last week, but it was still a little painful.

Not as painful as this, though.

He placed his hand on Sam's seat, pressing down into the material as if it could somehow call his brother through the upholstery.

He was jostled out of his reverie by his phone ringing.

Startled, he brushed mist out of his eyes and flipped the phone open.

"Yeah, who is this?"  
"Dean? It's Castiel."

Dean massaged his jaw. "Cas."  
"I'm out of the hospital. I wanted to ask if I could speak to Sam. I'd...rather not talk to you. I can't seem to get to Sam through any of his phones..."  
"Cas, Sam is dead."

There was silence on the other end.

"Cas...are you still there?"  
"Yes." short, clipped.

Dean tightened his grip on the phone. "Did you hear what I said?"  
"Yes. What happened?"

"Shifter."

"So it wasn't..."

"No."

Cas was breathing heavily on the other end.

"Cas, what do you want me to say? I'm sorry, okay? What happened after the trials, what happened to Sam...you...it was my fault. I know that, okay?"

Dial tone.

Dean tossed the phone in the seat, shoving his hand through his hair as a frustrated shout forced its way out of his throat.

Cas had hung up on him. His brother had just died, and his only friend left in the world had hung up the phone.

Dean drove blindly for a while, feeling the tension rise behind his eyes as trees and road signs flew past.

He finally swept the phone up off the seat, redialing the number Cas had called from.

"Hello?"

"It's me. Don't hang up...Please."

"What do you want, Dean?" Cas sounded tired.

Dean gnawed on his lip.

"I just...look, my brother is dead. I don't know what to do."

"Maybe ask an angel to heal him? Go behind everyone's back? Oh, I know. Cross your fingers and hope that whatever stranger you ask for help won't actually have ulterior motives and kill your brother?

"How can you say that to me? I am sorry, Cas. I could say it a million ways to the sky and back and I know that it won't change what happened. I know that. But I don't deserve this. Not now." Cas was still silent, so Dean pressed on. "I would never do something to hurt Sam. Never. There is nothing that could make me do that. So why would you say something like that?"

Cas sighed audibly. "You betrayed me. Even worse, you betrayed Sam. You failed, and I cannot understand how lying to Sam...lying to me...the way you did was out of love! Don't tell me that. I can't forgive that, or did you forget that he was my family too? And you just decide to drop that bomb on me? Tell me that he's dead?"

"He wasn't your brother, he was mine." Dean growled.

"Well." Cas said with finality. "You could have fooled me."  
"If you hang up on me again..."

It was too late.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

For the majority of the month that Sam had been dead, Dean had slept in the Impala, unable to bring himself to rent a single bed motel room, or even worse, rent a double and lay all night looking at the empty bed across from him.

He would curl himself up in the backseat, hiding from the sight of the road and the vacant passenger seat, and drift in and out of sleep, haunted by dream-like images of his horror Christmas.

He had sat outside the operation room door that night for almost ten minutes, not wanting to intrude on the last few moments his brother had with Katie.

When he'd finally gone in, Katie was already gone. Peacefully, in her own form.

He'd realized moments later that Sam was gone, too.

Gone. Without saying goodbye.

Never goodbye.

He'd dug a grave for Katie behind the abandoned hospital. Taken the time to smooth her hair over her shoulders and scatter a few dandelions over her body before burning her bones. Sam would've wanted that, for her to be buried with some respect.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Winter changed into spring. Blah blah blah.

As the weeks dragged on, Dean quickly decided that he hated spring. He had never been quite fond of it as a kid. It had forced him to watch his brother suffer through bouts of intense, sleepless allergies for weeks on end.

Now it was even worse. After two and a half months of no brother at his side, Dean resented the season more than he ever had. He laid awake at night, despising the silence. No Sammy breathing thickly on the other side of the room.

As if that wasn't enough, the trees and plants taunted him every time he stepped outside, reminding him that they had new life. New life. New life. Life.

He'd tried going back to hunting, for a while. He started to sympathize a little with the decisions Sam had made while he himself had been in Purgatory.

What was the point of saving the world when there was no one in it he loved?

Sam's voice echoed in his mind constantly, like a conscience. Dean found himself puppeting his brother's actions from the previous year, minus the girl and the dog. He would never allow himself that. He did allow himself a job at a small garage. A last salute to Sam's sense of honor. Last salute to Sam's ridiculously moralistic standards. It was a proper job.

Life was a burden. Too much weight, not enough purpose. No wonder Sam had given up the way he had.

He spun the Impala in circles, first driving as far away from Sam's grave site as he could, then coming rushing back, then going away again when the simple headstone taunted him with the reminder of how not alive Sam was.

As he'd left, he'd rested a hand on the grave marker next to Sam's.

"Take care of him, Bobby."

On the other side of the country, life became a routine of waiting for an end. Not an end to life itself, but an end to misery. Waiting for a magical knock on his door that would bring his world back.

It finally came.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Cas smiled wearily at the girl behind the counter as she handed him the key. "I'm so glad you're here." she said for the millionth time. "Like I said, we were going to call the police or something, you know, to make sure he was okay? Me and Emily kept talking about it, because our manager's out of town again, and he usually figures this stuff out, but we didn't know what to do. But then, sometimes, the light turns on in there, so we totally think he's at least alive." she leaned forward. "I even knocked on the door a couple times, you know, like, to see if I could get him anything, or something? He won't talk to me, though."

"Thank you." Cas said. It was time to walk away, before the girl with the purple lips could start talking again.

He looked down at the small brass key in his hand, the number 7 barely visible under the deep scratches. The Winchesters had always seemed to have a knack for finding the most worn down motels, and this one was definitely meeting the usual standards.

He stopped for a moment outside the door, lowering himself onto the Impala's front bumper for a moment. Dean would kill him in a heartbeat if he saw that, but Cas allowed himself to feel very human in the moment, and take a kind of pleasure in knowing that it would make Dean angry.

The moment passed, and he stood up and walked to the door, knocking on it firmly and surely before he could change his mind.

There was no sound from behind the door. He hesitated, then knocked again. He might be angry with Dean, but he had just ridden a bus for thirty hours next to a man who smelled like cigarette smoke and unwashed socks. Who snored. Cas had suffered too much from that to let his trip go to waste.

He could hear some shuffling, and then a moan behind the door, then it slowly swung open.

Dean looked like something that he used to hunt. Hollow cheekbones, cloudy eyes, and a mange of hair that would have given Sam's mane a run for its money.

Cas realized that Dean was sizing him up as well. The awkward silence persisted.

"Well..." Dean said hoarsely. He sounded like his voice had been out of practice for a while. "...let's get this over with."

Cas stared at him. "What?"

Dean spread his arms, his crinkled gray t-shirt sending off ripe odors that rivaled the man on the bus. "Hit me. Go on."

"Dean, I...can I come in?"

Dean didn't move. "You don't want witnesses? Nobody in this town will care. Come on! Beat me to a pulp."

Cas sighed and put his hands on Dean's shoulders, gently pushing him back into the room. Dean didn't resist, allowing Cas to puppet his limbs until he was sitting on the edge of the tangled mess of sheets on the bed.

Cas closed the door and turned back to face Dean again.

"Dean, I'm not here to hurt you."  
Dean was staring at his hands. "Then why are you here?"

Cas stood in front of the man, looking down at the hunched shoulders.

"I haven't forgotten that day and what I said."

Dean looked up, fire sparking in his eyes.

"Dean, I still don't understand. I'm still angry. But you deserve a chance to explain."

"That's it?" Dean pushed his hand over his clumped hair.

Cas opened and closed his mouth, slowly taking in Dean's weary, starved, desperate look. "That's it. Can I buy you a beer?"

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

The television was getting louder. Dean rolled his eyes at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, the half shaved face staring back at him with weary impatience.

"Remind me why I let him in?" he asked it.

_I'llllllll beee hoooome forr Chrrriissstmaaass..." _

Dean threw down the razor. He hadn't needed the noise. Hadn't needed the reminder of seeing Cas again. And now, Cas' use of the remote control and the noise were combining themselves to remind him that it had been a whole year since Sam died.

"Cas, so help me..."  
Cas didn't even turn around.

"I told you I wouldn't talk to you until you were done cleaning yourself up." he said flatly.

"You're worse than a girl." Dean quipped back, but he turned and went back to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Instead of reapplying the razor to his face, though, he slid his back down the bathroom door until he was curled in a fetal position on the floor.

He had wanted Cas to come back. He'd thought he'd wanted Cas back.

He was going to go out there and tell the television addict to leave. Because that had gone so well last time. Hey Cas, leave. No, not going to tell you why. Hang on, come back. There's a bad angel possessing Sam and he won't leave.

Grabbing the edge of the sink, Dean pulled himself back up to his feet and picked the razor up.

Cas was right. It was time for an explanation. Sam would have expected that much.

He finished shaving, then stepped into the shower, the hot water on his face reminding him just how long it had been since he'd bathed. It was amazing, washing away his smell and calming him. He was never getting out. At least not until the hot water ran out. He reached out for the soap and cursed. Of course the soap wasn't in the shower. It was on the other side of the sink.

He quickly jumped out, grabbed the soap, and turned around and saw him.

Sam looked just like he had the last time Dean had seen him, except now he was wet. He was sitting in the shower, his long legs folded under him. The water seemed to have turned to sludge, shining as it ran off of Sam's head, down his Frankenstein patterned skin and into the troughs between his ribs. It pooled around Sam, colored by blood and something else that it had washed from the stitched wounds on Sam's torso.

Dean turned his back on the hallucination, forcing his hands not to shake as he put the soap back. He was done taking a shower.

He pulled a clean t shirt and jeans on and ducked out of the bathroom, not daring to look into the shower again.

"What's wrong?" he could hear the concern in Cas' voice.

He'd slammed the bathroom door. He tucked his hands in his pockets, trying to look casual and hide how much he was shaking at the same time.

Not like it was the first time he'd seen Sam, but it never got any easier.

Cas was on his feet. "Dean, was there something in there?"  
"Nah, man. I'm just sick of smelling the girlie soap they've got in there. Couldn't breathe."

He could feel the huge drops of water sliming their way out of the grease in his hair and down his face. Or maybe that was sweat.

He had two options, and with Cas staring at him like this there was no way he was going to pass out or throw up.

"Let's go get that beer." he choked out. "Need to wash that soap out of my system."  
"I think you left the water running." Cas still sounded skeptical. Come on Cas, quit being perceptive. You turn out off the stupid water.

"Is that what that is?" Dean kicked himself mentally. He sounded like a psychotic four year old who was pretending he didn't see the marks on the wall that matched the crayon in his hand.

Of course, Cas didn't see right through the game. He scowled thoughtfully, tilting his head as the room fell silent.

"Yes, the shower is definitely still on. You should go turn that off."

Dean nodded tightly. "Yeah. You go out to the car, I'll be right out as soon as I..." the word stuck in his throat, and he coughed. "...turn off the shower."

He was thankful that Cas had such an innocent level of trust in him at times.

As the outside door squealed to a close, Dean turned to face the bathroom, inhaling as he practiced the words he had used for the last year to keep Sam's image out of sight.

"Samuel Robert Winchester passed away on December 25, 2013. His remains were buried two days later. He is at peace, and will rest like that for the rest of eternity."

The bathroom door swung open, Dean squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

"Sam is dead." he whispered. He opened his eyes.

"Dean." Sam whimpered. "Help me."


End file.
